Convergence
by Aqua Lion
Summary: Riley didn't think he was looking for someone to trust; after all, it didn't work out too well the last time. Benjamin F. Gates and his treasure hunt? Just a distraction from old wounds. ...Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
1. Pain

**Convergence**  
Prologue: Pain

_A/N- This is just my take on Riley's past, and how he met up with Ben. I keep referencing it in Vault of the Oracle, may as well actually write it out, eh?  
__Disclaimer- If I owned NT, this wouldn't be fanfiction. And _none_ of the deleted scenes would've been deleted._

* * *

The Denver sunlight was just starting to fight its way past thick layers of clouds as the front door of the mansion opened, admitting two nearly identical young men. The taller carried a large instrument case and a bulging backpack; the shorter's pack was much slimmer and all he carried was a laptop. He was chattering nervously.

It was the first day of second semester, and Riley Poole was already panicking.

"I've got history first period. First period! Nothing good can possibly come of that. Computer apps isn't until the end of the day, I don't think I'll _survive_ until then."

His older brother flinched rather than laughing at the comment. That struck him as rather odd, but Tristan had been acting odd a lot lately. And the fact that he'd suddenly decided to sign up for _band_ wasn't the least of the oddities. Music? Really? He didn't know a bass clef from a bass fish.

"Riley, why are you even taking a computer class? You probably know more than the teacher will."

"Easy A. I'll need it. History first period... wow."

Usually, his brother would banter with him all the way to school, but today Tristan was being very quiet, slipping into spells of brooding where Riley was pretty sure he'd forgotten anyone else was there. It was actually starting to worry him. Okay, that settled it. After school today he'd start badgering until he got an answer.

"C'mon, let's take a shortcut." Gesturing with the bulky case, the older of the two darted into an alley.

"Hey, wait up! I don't want to get to school _early!"_

"Relax, kid." Tristan stopped halfway through and pulled him aside. "It's not really a shortcut anyway, I just need to talk to you."

Riley gave him a puzzled look. Yes, he'd been thinking they needed to talk too, but... "We're gonna be late, aren't we?"

"Don't worry about that right now. This is important."

That didn't sound good, actually. Maybe he _was_ finally going to find out why his brother had been acting so strange lately. "What's up?" Tristan looked so terribly nervous, and Riley badly wanted to tell him it would be okay. They'd taken care of each other for as long as he could remember. Whatever he had to say now, nothing would change. "What's wrong?"

"Riles..." Uh oh. He'd used _the name_. Never a good sign. "Riles, I... you know that I love you, right kid? That you're the best brother anyone could ask for?"

Blue met blue, Riley's blank expression locking on his brother's intense gaze. "Uh...?"

"It's true. I just need you to know that. Tell me you know. Tell me you understand."

He nodded. "I understand." Sure, he understood what Tristan was saying, but certainly not why it was so critical for it to be said right now, right here.

"Do you trust me, Riles?"

"Of course I do!"

He had no idea why that answer should make Tristan look so upset. "Then listen carefully. You're going to grow up, and you're going to meet more people who don't care about you. Who just want to use you. And maybe someday you'll run into someone who wants more than that, someone who's worth caring about. Who sees you as more than a tool. If you find that person, Riles, don't ever let them go. Don't _ever_ let them go. But kid... choose wisely." His hands gripped the young man's shoulders. "Don't ever let anyone hurt you..."

"Tristan?"

"...like I'm about to."

Riley never saw what hit him. He barely had time to register what his brother had said, and then he was spun around and everything went black.


	2. Guilt

**Convergence**  
Chapter One: Guilt

* * *

"They told us the perp's brother is in here."

"Yes, he's on this floor, I'll take you to him."

"Was he shot?"

"No. 911 got a call early this morning, asking for an ambulance at an alley near the school. They found him unconscious there. Blow to the back of the head. He won't tell us anything about why he was there or who hit him."

Sergeant Damien Ross nodded, already having his suspicions. "I'll need to ask him some questions, you know."

"Of course, but..." The nurse stopped and gave him a searching look. "The boy's quite distressed. I don't know that he'd be any more cooperative for you than he has been for us."

"I won't press too hard. We just need to see if he _is_ willing to talk, if he knows anything that can help us. Has he heard about what happened? All of it?"

"Unfortunately, yes. We didn't want to tell him until there was more information, but he got a look at the news. It was definitely his brother?"

"No question. He left a note. Not too different from the usual story, you know? Rich parents who didn't pay attention and finally he just snapped. Didn't say much else." It _had_ said his brother had nothing to do with his actions. No matter though, the questions had to be asked. Ross was more than a little sympathetic to the young man he needed to speak to. But he had his feelings, and then he had his duty.

The nurse motioned him into a small room at the end of the hallway. "He's in there." She looked a bit uneasy. "Do try not to be too long, he's still recovering."

Ross nodded his understanding and entered the room, where a wiry form was curled up in the bed. He wasn't asleep, though; sharp blue eyes had fixed on the officer as soon as he entered.

"Riley Poole?" The young man nodded mutely. His expression didn't invite conversation, which was perfectly understandable, but... there was just no other option. Ross gave him his most comforting smile. "I'm Sergeant Ross. Would you be willing to talk to me for a few minutes? I just need to ask you some questions."

A blank, cold look. "About what?" Riley's unwelcoming tone was mostly lost in the weakness of his voice. The kid sounded like he'd been out for days, not hours.

There wasn't really a way to ease into this. The sergeant had no doubt that Riley knew exactly what he wanted to ask. He just didn't want to hear it, and he had to hear it, and there was no sense insulting his intelligence by trying to pretend otherwise. Sometimes, Ross really hated his job. "About your brother."

"What brother?" His tone wasn't unwelcoming anymore, it was merely flat. They might've been discussing the weather.

Not the expected reaction. "Um." The officer glanced back at the doorway where he'd left the nurse. _Don't push it. The kid's been through hell, he's stressed out, pressing him harder won't help_. "All right, no need to go there. Could you maybe tell me a bit about your parents?"

"What parents?"

Well then. "Your, ah..." There was really nowhere to go with this. He _could_ go all hard-ass on the kid, but he couldn't quite find the heart to do it. "Of course... sorry to have bothered you. If you remember anything, will you let us know?"

Riley nodded and gave the door a significant look.

There was a hint there, and Ross took it, much to the nurse's approval. Of course, as soon as he was outside he realized what had just happened. He could've kicked himself. Some interrogation report this would be... Denver's finest told to buzz off by a 16-year-old. Great.

Maybe he'd try again tomorrow. Yes, that was a good plan.

--

Riley watched the cop leave, his eyes clouded. He'd seemed friendly enough, for a cop, but more importantly he'd seemed to realize that Riley wanted nothing to do with him. The nurse had probably told him to make it quick, besides.

He hadn't been all that far off when he'd asked _what parents_. The cop could hardly be expected to know that. He sighed and rolled over in the uncomfortable hospital bed. There was more than enough he could've told the guy about his parents, if he'd cared to. Things like the minor detail that while he was far from happy about it, he couldn't entirely blame Tristan for shooting them.

Shooting them? Really? He kept replaying that fact in his head, trying to force it to sink in. It wasn't going so well. But he'd seen the television screaming the news before the hospital staff had hurriedly moved him to a different room.

_No, don't let him see the reports_. Not of the wealthy couple slain in their own house. Certainly not of the casualties at the high school where he was _supposed_ to be that day. Where he would've been, had the shooter not knocked him out in an alley. _Don't let the poor boy see such grisly things_.

They hadn't counted on his hacking skills, and they hadn't secured their network very well. Of course they'd tried to take his laptop, emphasis on the 'tried' part. There were some things Riley simply would not stand for. It wasn't as if his injuries were life-threatening, just a good bump on the head, and finally the nurse had agreed to let him keep the computer with him.

She was treating him like some fragile glass ornament, which was usually a little annoying, but he doubted she had any clue how to handle a situation like this. The cop sure hadn't.

Following the updates on the shooting wasn't doing much for his mood, but he kept checking the various news sites anyway. It wasn't just curiosity, the 'train wreck factor' as they called it. There was something he needed to know. Something important. More important than the death toll or injuries or the blowhards they kept interviewing, speculating on _why_ such a good student and quiet young man would do such a horrible thing.

Riley didn't know exactly why either, but he had a pretty good clue. Everything Tristan had told him that morning made sense now. Except... _if I'm the best brother anyone could ask for, why wasn't I good enough to stop this?_

Finally. Two and a half hours of refreshing and one of the investigators had finally confirmed what Riley had known, in his guts, the whole time. Yes, the perpetrator was quite dead. Yes, he'd killed himself when the police arrived.

_Tristan_...

He understood all too well the atrocity that had taken place that morning, but when Riley fell face-first into the pillow, his tears were only for his brother.

--

It was a bit past one in the morning when he woke up. There were new updates on the shooting, of course, but they didn't seem to matter anymore. Tristan was dead. His parents were dead. At least a dozen students who'd just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time were dead.

_What next?_

Foster care, certainly. He was barely sixteen, and while _he_ had no doubt he could take care of himself, the officials of the fine state of Colorado probably wouldn't see it that way.

Counseling, probably. No doubt plenty of doctors would have plenty of opinions on how he should work through such severe emotional trauma, or whatever the technical term was. No chance. He didn't need to hear from some stuffy old guy that he wasn't responsible for what his brother had done, that it was only natural to feel survivor's guilt... heck with that.

The facts were, he was the only person who'd ever cared about Tristan, for as long as he could remember. Tristan had gone and killed their parents, then shot up a school and _himself_, so obviously Riley's caring about him wasn't enough.

It wasn't that they'd been abused. No, quite the contrary. Brendan and Sarah Poole had showered their two sons with anything they asked for—anything to keep the kids out of their hair. Nothing so trivial as children could interrupt the busy social lives of the elite.

He brushed a hand over the laptop and shook his head. There was a reason he'd thrown himself into the world of technology. Computers were smarter and more reliable than humans, and they did as they were told. But a motherboard was no replacement for a mother, and he could hardly talk to a monitor about failing tests or being bullied. For every moment he'd needed some_one_ instead of some_thing_, there had been Tristan. Apparently his brother hadn't trusted him quite so much.

Morbid curiosity had him check the news once more, and a new item caught his eye. **Shooter's suicide note released.**

A note? He'd left a note? He couldn't tell Riley anything about what was on his mind, but he'd gone to the trouble of leaving a note? The article only gave a summary, of course, but that was hardly an obstacle. Within five minutes Riley was in the police department's database, looking at evidence scans.

_I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. What I've done, if this is being read. I'm not sorry for my parents, they deserved it. They gave us everything money could buy, and nothing but what money could buy. That's all there is to it, really; I hated them. They didn't care about anyone but themselves and I hated them. They deserved what they got._

_But I'm sorry for the others. I know there must have been others. I know what I'm going to do. I have to do it, because I know I have to die now. And I'm not going to die as punishment for killing those bastards. I have to die for something... worse. I don't expect to be understood, or forgiven, but I'm sorry._

_I imagine this note will get to the police first, so one more thing. My brother was not involved in this. He's known something's wrong, but that's all. Leave him alone._

_Riles, if they let you read this, don't blame yourself. What I've done isn't your fault._

There was more on the page, but Riley slammed the laptop shut. He couldn't read anymore, couldn't take anymore of Tristan's last words. Especially because his brother had always known what he was thinking before the thoughts even got into his head.

_Don't blame myself?_

Riley slipped silently out of bed, walking over to the window and looking out. He was on the first floor of the hospital. Convenient.

He might be able to convince himself to follow Tristan's last request... to not blame himself. But he knew he couldn't stay here. There was no way he'd spend the next two years being shuffled around between strangers' homes, being treated like he'd shatter if someone looked at him wrong—or like an unwelcome intruder. He wasn't really sure which would be worse. Either way, forget it.

In any other case he might have been afraid, but right now the shock of the day's events overrode anything else he could be feeling as he unlatched the window, opened it, and vaulted into the grass below. And he ran.

--

"The hospital's records show that he was signed out late last night."

"By who?"

"Apparently, an aunt from Cheyenne. The name checks out."

"You know, this was enough of a mess without having more complications thrown in. We'll have to get cooperation from their police department, cross state lines..."

"We didn't ask the hospital to detain him?"

"Oh, we asked. They refused to hold him unless we charged him with a crime—and obviously we can't. Even if it's just to keep him around for questioning, imagine the outcry." The chief sounded disgusted. "Otherwise they said he'd been through enough."

Sergeant Ross arched an eyebrow. Privately he agreed with that assessment. He also knew that the lady working the front desk at the time had no recollection of the kid's being signed out, and the window in his room had been open.

Usually his first reaction would be to suspect guilt. The problem was, all the background checking they'd done on the Poole family since the shooting told him that Riley was smart. Perhaps even brilliant. If he _had_ been in on this, he had to realize playing the traumatized victim would get him out of the mess a lot easier than making a run for it. The other possibility was that this was just what it looked like: he was hurt, he was terrified, he was dealing with post-traumatic shock, and he'd run. Hardly unheard of for kids his age, even when all they had to worry about was homework.

There were feelings, and then there was duty...

"I did question him pretty thoroughly, chief. Didn't get even a hint that he knew anything. It might be best to just let him go."

That earned him the frown he knew he'd get. "What about the investigation?"

Good question. "He didn't have any information. If we find new evidence we can get in touch with him. Until then, there's no need to bother him. Besides," he looked away so his scornful expression would be hidden, "you know what always happens after incidents like these. Drag him through the usual round of second-guessing for no reason and the press'll crucify the whole department."

Invoking politics was the best way to get anything done around the chief, and he was nodding as Ross finished up his argument. "True, that's a good point. All right... submit a full report of your questioning. We won't try to follow up with him if we don't have to."

Ross nodded, already making up details of the interrogation of his mind. It would be a bit of extra work, naturally—but on the bright side, it meant he'd still be able to sleep at night.

_Good luck, kid. Whatever you're doing_.

--

Riley wasn't exactly a stranger to crime, considering hacking was his favorite hobby. Still, cracking secure networks for fun and occasionally adding embarrassing 'typos' to newspaper articles was one thing. Bailing out of the hospital and forging records of his release was something else. He felt slightly bad for dumping the cops on poor Aunt Viola, but it was the cops who'd be sorry if they actually followed that up. The woman really wasn't all right in the head—his parents had preferred to pretend she didn't exist.

She probably _would've_ taken him in, but she creeped the heck out of him, so forget that. Besides, too obvious... and too close. He needed to get far away from here.

To that end, he'd dropped by a bank with an ATM and discovered that his parents' account had not yet been closed. Excellent. In keeping with their opinion that enough money could solve anything that went wrong with their children, he could access that without having to hack it, and under his own name, which would avoid raising any uncomfortable questions about why dead people needed cash. It would just raise uncomfortable questions about why their kid wanted the cash right after they died.

Right. Great. He took out enough to keep him going for a week or so on the road, and that was it. The less suspicion he raised (because jumping out the hospital window in the middle of the night wasn't at all suspicious), the better his head start before the cops tried to hunt him down. Surely he had at least a couple of days to get off the grid before the investigation began in earnest.

There were complications. For one thing, he had to finish school, though after what Tristan had done he never wanted to set foot in a classroom again. That would probably involve hacking and forging some more records, and that would be pretty complicated. His whole future was about to depend on the very illegal hobby his parents hadn't cared that he took up, because the expensive schooling really hadn't worked so well.

For another thing, he actually had to go somewhere. Preferably as far from here as possible.

Running away looked so easy in the movies. You got your money and your fake ID, and you bailed to the Caribbean and spent the rest of your life sipping margaritas on sunny beaches. Riley didn't have a clue where he could get a fake ID, didn't like alcohol (of _course_ he'd raided his parents' liquor cabinet, didn't everyone?), and the thought of getting sand in his shoes all the time was the final straw.

New strategy. He pulled up a map online and closed his eyes, then pointed to the screen. "All right," he muttered to the laptop when he saw where he'd landed. "We're going to DC."


	3. Pity

**Convergence**  
Chapter Two: Pity

* * *

"Frankly, Mr. Gates, I do not appreciate taking time from my busy schedule to listen to this fantasy story. And I certainly will not give you access to our database. These are important historical documents, meant for those with a true appreciation of our nation's rich heritage; _not_ crackpot conspiracy theorists. Now good day."

The door to the head of the history department's private office didn't quite slam shut, but it certainly closed forcefully as a tall, light-haired man was nearly shoved out. He glanced back at the door once, then sighed and shook his head as he started the trek back out of the building. He didn't look at all upset or offended, merely resigned.

Ten feet away, a young man was crouching beside the secretary's desk, patiently sorting out a jumble of wires. A few minutes ago he'd been muttering about sweet little old ladies who wouldn't know a USB port from an airport, but when he heard Dr. Watson start ranting, the kid had fallen silent. For one thing, he certainly didn't need to catch the notoriously bad-tempered department head's attention. But most importantly, he'd caught the words _will not give you access to our database_.

Heh. That was what _he_ thought.

Unfortunately for the boss, he had Riley Poole doing his tech support. And Riley got bored with his work pretty easily.

"Look on the bright side. At least he's not grading your papers."

The man turned and studied him with a look of half-curiosity. It was a thoroughly odd sensation. The guy was half zeroed in on him, sharp intelligence flashing in his eyes, and yet he was half... _not there_. Pretty much looking through Riley into the painting of daffodils on the wall.

For a moment, he tried to picture himself through an outsider's eyes. 'Scruffy' was probably the first word that would come to mind. Accurate enough. He typically tumbled out of bed and took five minutes to dress and chug some coffee before coming to work. Certainly no time to shave. Add to that the faded jeans and ragged blue hoodie, and he was hardly a picture of professionalism and sophistication. Which was kind of the point. The more annoyed Watson became about it, the scruffier Riley got.

That said, this guy Gates was no prize himself. His clothes looked like they'd been nice once, but now they were about as threadbare as Riley's and fraying in several places. The stack of folders and notebooks in his arms looked like they'd survived years of wear, tear, and coffee stains. But mostly, he carried an air of frustration, though the young tech couldn't place why—all that was in his eyes was that curious half-focus.

It was difficult not to feel pity for him. Just a little. And if defying the boss would help him out, so much the better.

"What do you mean?" the older man asked at length.

"I mean at least he only chewed you out. If you were a student, he'd have chewed you out then failed you."

"Surely he doesn't treat students like that."

"Oh yes. His students. And other peoples' students. And the other faculty. And the building staff. And the tech support... and that's where I come in. I hear you want to look at the database?"

Suddenly Gates looked fully interested in what he had to say. "Well, that's what I was hoping for..."

"Have a seat." Riley gestured to the secretary's chair. She wasn't going to be in today, they'd have plenty of time. "What are you looking for?"

"Someone n... wait." Gates gave him a look that wasn't at all skeptical, merely concerned. "You're not actually allowed to do that, are you? If he refused? Won't you get in trouble?"

Whoever the guy was, he clearly hadn't learned enough life lessons from Disney movies. "You're only in trouble if you get caught." Which had pretty much been Riley's motto since he first saw Aladdin, and his life kept proving it. "Which we will _not_, because Watson leaves his office for two things: lunch, and Armageddon."

The man looked at him for a moment, then shrugged and sat down, apparently accepting this. Riley opted not to mention that technically he'd be hacking into the database rather than simply accessing it on a computer he wasn't allowed to be on... that probably wouldn't make the poor guy feel any better. "I, uh. Thanks. I'm looking for someone named Charlotte. Lived in the late 18th century, somewhere in America, and that's really all I know."

Riley arched an eyebrow. _Weird_. "No problem."

A disbelieving snort from his companion told him it was more of a problem than he realized, but he was too busy getting into the database to worry about that for a minute. When he looked back at the beneficiary of his hacking skills, one of the folders was open and he was going through a sheath of papers, a list of some sort.

He squinted. It was a list of people named Charlotte.

_Weird_, Riley reiterated to himself once more. But his job wasn't to ask questions. It was simply to act in whatever manner would most annoy his boss; not because his boss would find out, but just on principle. So he shrugged off the oddity of the situation and got to work.

--

It had been easy to convince the District of Columbia Public Schools that yes, in fact, he was a part of their system. Disturbingly easy, actually. He had been far from his sharpest state of mind when he'd fled Denver, and once his thoughts had cleared a bit, he'd realized the best he could hope for was to even be able to get into their files. After all, surely a school would have better security than the stuff he cracked for fun.

Or, maybe not so much.

The problem wasn't technically that his badly thought-out plan had worked. The problem was that now he had to do something with himself, because his money was going to run out in very short order. Riley would be the first to admit that he didn't have much in the way of marketable job skills. It also didn't help that he wasn't even out of high school yet. To the extent he'd thought about it at all, he'd figured someone always needed their burgers flipped. Nothing was beneath him right now... well, except for political work. Yes, it was Washington, but he did have some standards.

He also had some morals, which made him very reluctant to use his powers for evil, but surely there were plenty of ways to use hacking ability that wouldn't really hurt anyone. Weren't there?

It turned out that hacking someone's system in order to tell them he'd found a security hole was a great way to get attention. The first few months were hit-and-miss, mostly _miss_, but slowly he'd fixed a few systems and built something of a reputation.

With that, of course, came attention from people who wanted some less ethical hacking done. He turned down more of those offers than he accepted, but things such as simple information gathering he went with. In any case, he was careful. One slip and he was done for.

It was far from a perfect life, but Riley found it had its merits. He was making a living off his hobby, something that hardly felt like work. And more importantly, it kept him occupied. The more he focused on what he was doing, and not getting caught, the less time he had to think about exactly why he was doing it. Or really, why he was on this side of the country in the first place.

All this was fine until he actually graduated from high school. While his hacking supported him, it would probably be a good idea to hold a _real_ job. Just in case. Instead, he'd ended up as university tech support.

He'd been at that job for a couple of years now, but this was probably the strangest thing he'd been asked to do yet. No problem. Strange was good.

--

Ben Gates had been laughed out of a great many offices in his career. If it could be called a career, anyway. He was long since used to people not believing what he tried to tell them about the Templar treasure, though most couldn't be bothered to give him the full riot act as Dr. Watson had. Then again, there were positives. Most didn't dismiss him from their office only to have their tech support take pity on him, either.

The kid standing over the keyboard had an edgy look about him as he worked, and truth be told, that wasn't so encouraging. Yet he clearly knew what he was doing, and Ben knew he needed all the help he could get, so he struggled to keep his mouth shut and watch the young man work.

"Did I say a list of _residents_ of Charlotte? No? Then why're you giving it to me, you silly string of code?"

He couldn't help but crack a smile. Apparently the database thought the same thing he'd thought himself when he first started the search. _The secret lies with Charlotte._ It didn't have to mean a person, but every lead on Charlotte as a place had come up empty. So he was back to this.

It took a surprisingly short time for them to come to the conclusion Ben had already suspected. This history department knew no more of Charlotte than any of the other dozens he'd been to. No great surprise. What he was doing now could justifiably be called grasping at straws. Still, it had been worth a try...

He stood, sighing at yet another wild goose chase. The rudeness of Dr. Watson hadn't bothered him, but failing again bothered him a great deal. He was becoming uncomfortably aware that he was using up leads very quickly, but wasn't finding many new ones. Matter of fact, at the moment he was flat out. He knew what that meant. It was going to be a rough night.

"...ing else?"

"Huh?" His head snapped up as he realized the tech was talking to him. "Sorry, I got a bit lost in thought, what was that?"

The kid's blue eyes sharpened slightly, fixed on him as if he were an exceptionally ill-behaved piece of hardware. Which he supposed, after he'd spaced out like that, wasn't a bad comparison. But he was grinning when he repeated, "Do you need to look for anything else?"

"Oh, no. That was it." Ben sighed again, giving a frustrated look to the computer even though he knew it wasn't the machine's fault. "Thanks very much for your help, though."

"No problem." Almost before he was even finished speaking, his unlikely helper was back to his work. Best to be about his own business, then, or at least get out of here.

Pulling a wad of papers from his pocket and shuffling through them, he looked one last time to see if he had another stop today. No, he didn't. And he'd known he didn't without looking. One last desperate hope that a new lead would materialize... he sighed, stuffed everything back in his pocket, and was gone.

Just another day of the great Gates family quest.

--

Try as he might, Riley couldn't find anything wrong with the computer—or at least, nothing since he'd plugged the keyboard back in two hours ago. But the secretary had _panicked_ when the machine stopped responding to her typing. Duty demanded that he check through everything. Duty was really very annoying and boring, and he wished Gates could've come up with something else to look for. Oh well.

Taking his own advice about Watson's observation habits, he dropped into the seat and started playing Minesweeper, a game he despised. And was terrible at. But hey, it beat the alternative.

After losing his third straight game, he spun around in the chair and noticed something dark glinting on the tan carpet. "_Oh_. Hello." Leaning down, he plucked the slip of plastic off the floor and shook his head. "You're not supposed to be here," he informed it impatiently.

The credit card didn't respond. Not that he'd really expected it to, as that could only mean he'd finally snapped, but there were days... he glanced at the front of the card and found it belonged to Benjamin F. Gates. _Excellent_. The guy was long gone by now, and the fact that he hadn't returned meant either he didn't realize the card was missing, or he simply didn't know where he could've lost it. It probably didn't matter either way.

There was a single, fleeting moment where Riley considered just hanging onto his prize. Immediately he shook it out of his head, because it was idiotic. Wrong, too, of course. While his supporting himself for the last five years with hacking was hardly a noble and legal calling, outright theft was something totally different. He'd hang onto the card for the rest of the day and if Gates hadn't showed up by the time he left, he could find his address and stick it in the mail.

That sounded really great until he remembered the time _he'd_ lost a credit card and had someone mail it back. Not that this had resulted in two days of utter panic, or anything... probably ought to give the guy a call, too. A few minutes of searching later, he had a phone number. And an address, which to his great annoyance was only about an hour away. Sure, he _could_ mail it. Or he could just drop by after work and give it back.

He sighed and quietly cursed his better judgment for being, well, better. And cursed Gates for looking so pathetic that Riley felt sorry for him. And cursed his boss, just on principle.

May as well deliver it. It wasn't like he had anything else to do with his time.


	4. Empathy

**Convergence  
**Chapter Three: Empathy

_A/N- Many thanks for all the reviews! I do sincerely apologize for the mistreatment of Ben in this chapter, and I promise he'll get better. (No treasure hunters were harmed... much... during the making of this fanfic.)  
__I still don't own NT, blah blah, you know the drill._

* * *

Riley sprawled on his bed, or at least the stack of pillows which he considered a bed, and stared at the ceiling. A Star Wars poster stared back at him. Nice as it was to look at, the glossy paper wasn't helping him come to any conclusions, so he turned and eyed his reflection in a computer monitor instead. "You may as well get it over with," he told the image. "You know you're not gonna wait until you can get in touch with him, no matter how weird it'll be to just show up at his door. What's he gonna do? Chase you off with a broom? Call the cops on you?"

Talking to his reflection was about as effective as talking to inanimate objects, but at least it cleared his mind a bit. Worrying was stupid. No sense fighting the inevitable any longer. He rolled off the bed and pitched its component pillows back into a corner, then slipped between the two front seats of the van and started looking for his keys.

There were certain things he had never felt his employer needed to know. One of them was that he was an expert hacker who could wipe out their entire system just as easily as he could fix it, because that really couldn't go anywhere good. Another was that he did not, in fact, have a cousin in Baltimore who could serve as an emergency contact—he wasn't planning on having any emergencies.

The most notable fact he kept hidden was that the battered conversion van he drove to work each day also happened to be where he lived. And there was no really good reason to skirt the issue every time he was asked for a permanent address, he just didn't feel like dealing with the pity that would inevitably follow. Scorn he could handle; they didn't understand. But he hated people feeling sorry for him. Always had. At this point, always would.

Especially when there was no _need_ for it.

The van had been his greatest score since arriving in DC. It was shabby looking, only had the front seats, and got terrible gas mileage, but it was cheap and functional. And most importantly, hadn't required anything inconvenient like a credit check.

Within a week he'd even decided that the large empty space where rear seats had once been was a plus, since it meant he could store his slowly-growing stash of tech equipment there rather than the closet of his hotel room. Within a month, the hotel had stopped serving any purpose, and he'd checked out. Not once had he even been tempted to go back.

_Story of my life_.

Checking the address one last time, he headed for the highway.

--

He really needed to stop doing this. He _knew_ he really needed to stop doing this. So why was it getting worse instead of better?

"Stupid treasure."

Ben stumbled down the sidewalk in an alcohol-induced haze, occasionally stumbling over cracks and stopping to observe the cars weaving down the street. The logical part of his mind told him that _he_ was the one weaving, but the logical part of his mind wasn't really the one in control right now. The part of his mind in control was telling him that not only were the cars weaving, the sidewalk in front of him was rather wickedly twisted itself, and it was no wonder he kept stumbling since he had about five feet to keep straight.

"Stupid Charlotte."

Walking home was always a risky proposition, but he'd decided after the first time to never drive _to_ the bar again, rather forcing the issue. The only reason he went out and got drunk was if the search seemed hopeless—getting in a car crash wasn't likely to improve matters. Hell, getting drunk in the first place didn't improve matters, but at least the crushing hangover the next morning would give him a little perspective. There was hopeless, and then there was miserable.

"Stupid hest... heisto... hista... stupid old stuff."

The terrain was starting to look more familiar, and he stopped in front of a building that was jogging his memory. He'd seen it before. Where had he seen it before? Wait a minute, he lived here. Right. That was it. Home sweet rental home. He lurched up the driveway and, after a couple of failed attempts, managed to get his keys out of his pocket. All he wanted right now was to get inside, collapse on the couch, and sleep for a week. Maybe a month.

"Oh. Ugh. Stupid door." Problem. He certainly didn't remember which of the four keyholes rotating around the doorknob he was actually supposed to put the key in. For that matter, he wasn't sure they were supposed to be moving, but they clearly _were_, so he shrugged it off and started trying to jam the key into one. It wasn't working all that well.

The roar of traffic barged into his consciousness and he frowned. Couldn't the motorists see he was attempting a delicate and difficult procedure here? It would really be polite if they'd keep the noise down a bit. Almost as soon as he thought it, the sound faded away, followed by a dull thump and the sound of footsteps.

Someone was talking somewhere behind him. "Mr. Gates?"

He tried to tune the vaguely familiar voice out and focus on getting the door open. The splitting headache was already starting to set in, he couldn't be bothered with crazy people. Gates? What gates? Nobody around here even had a fence.

--

The man hadn't seemed to hear him the first time, so Riley trotted up the driveway and frowned as he got a better look at the situation. Gates seemed to be stabbing his door with a keychain. "Um... excuse me, Mr. Gates?"

The smell of alcohol hit him from three feet away. Well, that explained the odd behavior with the keys, at least. Finally seeming to notice him, the man turned on him with unfocused eyes and slurred, "What? You lost, mebbe? I dun think... uh. Ask sum'n else."

Well, this complicated things a little bit. Riley backed off. "Um, I can come back later." Half expecting the drunk to protest, he turned to bolt back to the van, but then he heard the sound of keychain-on-wood again and calmed. He really should leave the card here and not come back again, but he wasn't too sure the guy would know what to do with it in his current state. Maybe if he pushed it under the door—if he could get away with that without getting slapped, anyway.

That was good. He'd just slip the card under the door and get the heck out of here, and that would be the end of it. Gates didn't even seem to notice him when he ducked under the ill-fated unlocking attempts and slipped the plastic through. Surely he'd find it in the morning. If not, well, Riley had done his best. He turned to go, hesitated, looked back at the older man.

He'd done what he came for. This wasn't his problem. He turned again, and stopped again.

Yeah... sure. One more try, same result.

Riley sighed. Much as he'd love to leave, every time he turned around a pang of guilt stabbed through his chest. He _couldn't_ do it. Something in him was refusing to just let him go and leave the guy to self-destruct, all alone. He knew why, but he wouldn't admit it to himself. It wasn't really a principle. It was only a memory...

"Dude, gimme that." He snatched the keys, earning a weak wave of protest that didn't come close to hitting him. "You'll be out here all night at this rate. Though don't get me wrong, fresh air would do you good."

Gates looked at him blankly as he sorted through the keys. "Hey. Dun I know you? Mebbe?"

"Maybe," Riley agreed, finding the correct key and opening the door on the third try. "In you go." The older man attempted to walk into the wall, so Riley grabbed his arm and guided him through the doorway. "You should really sit down before you hurt yourself."

"Goinna sleep.. be fine..."

Well, at least that had actually addressed what he'd said, for once. Riley took a look around the place. It was sparsely furnished and very cluttered, with papers scattered in no apparent order all over tables, chairs, and the floor. "You try to walk in here, you'll probably break something."

"Nuh-uh... can' take breaks... got too much... work..."

"Right, work. Want me to ask you how that's going?" The thought that he could leave whenever he wanted kept coming back to him, but he pushed it aside rather forcefully this time. If he was going to be here, he might as well go the whole way. He cleared a path to a nearby couch and unceremoniously pushed his new companion to sit on it. "Stay put." He didn't really think he needed to worry about that.

Bleary gray eyes attempted to focus on him and failed miserably. "G'nite..."

"No, don't go to sleep yet. You'll regret it in the morning, seriously. Where's your kitchen?"

"Huh? Catchin' what?"

"Never mind, I'll find it."

Riley had spent the better part of his first year in DC reminding himself he didn't like alcohol three times a day. It was a tempting mistake he knew he couldn't afford, and frankly, he'd been too busy looking over his shoulder already to have underage drinking on his record as well. Despite that, he _had_ gone through high school, and he _did_ work at a college. He'd picked up plenty of tips for dealing with hangovers. Not that he'd ever expected to put such information to use.

_Who knew?_

It wasn't too hard to find the kitchen, considering how small the house was, and he returned to the slumped form on the couch with a glass of water. "Here, drink this." For a moment, it looked like Gates was asleep already, but then he raised his head and sipped—then promptly jerked back, coughing.

That wasn't quite what Riley had been expecting. He tried again, only to get about the same result. "Oookay. I'll just leave this here with you then." He pushed the glass into Gates' hand. "Try to drink it, though, you'll feel better."

The man studied him with a drunken squint. "Who... how'd you get... in?"

Yeah, he was pretty well out of it.

Riley trotted back to the kitchen and contemplated matters. Getting some water into the drunken subject prior to their passing out was supposed to be part of it. What else? ...Well, there was the infamous Bubbles, from his senior English class, who showed up drunk twice a week. He insisted throwing any available fruit in a blender and chugging it would fix most hangovers, and he ought to know. On the other hand, Riley's technical expertise did not extend to kitchen appliances, and he rather doubted there would be a blender here anyway.

So maybe just tell him to eat some fruit when he woke up. Except there didn't seem to be much of _that_, either. However, the refrigerator had a variety of fruit juice. That ought to be close enough.

Five minutes later, he retreated from the kitchen, flipping the lights off and looking back at the couch. Gates was sprawled on the couch, with the glass of water half empty and sitting on the floor. Hopefully half empty because he'd been drinking it, rather than spilled it on himself, but whatever worked for him... he was muttering in his sleep.

"Stupid Charlotte..."

There was a brief moment where Riley found himself wondering what in the world was so important about this Charlotte, but then he shook it off and irritably inquired of his conscience if he was allowed to leave yet. It didn't answer, of course. But it also didn't protest when he turned the rest of the lights out and walked out the door.

--

Riley slumped over the steering wheel and closed his eyes, drawing several long, deep breaths before daring to look up again. "Ugh. Wow." Part of him didn't quite believe what he'd just done, but if he was perfectly honest with himself, it had been the only choice. Still...

Interaction beyond "Are you sure everything's plugged in?" exhausted him. He specialized in keeping people at a distance, not barging into their houses because he felt sorry for them, and the fact that Gates was totally smashed hadn't made it any better. (Probably worse, actually.) On the bright side, there was no way he'd remember anything tomorrow, and Riley had made a point of not leaving his name on the note he'd left behind. They'd never see each other again.

_But who's Charlotte?_

He scowled at himself and started the van. "Okay, listen up, Riley. You helped that guy out—twice—because he looked pathetic and he needed help. You aren't gonna stalk him and his long-lost great great grandmother or whatever. Got it? Good. Now drive."

Oy, he was talking to _himself_ now. He raised his eyes to the rear view mirror and met his own gaze. "And don't you say anything funny, either," he ordered the reflection. It probably didn't do much for his claims of sanity, but at least it made him feel better. That was important at times like this.

He drove.


	5. Impulse

**Convergence  
**Chapter Four: Impulse

* * *

When Ben woke up, the first thing that registered was the indisputable fact that someone was beating on his head with a sledgehammer. From the inside, he determined when it became apparent that nobody was actually standing near him. Maybe more than one sledgehammer.

The second thing he noticed was that he was alone. He generally expected this, but there _had_ been a couple of very nervous mornings. It wasn't really his fault—his girlfriend at the time had been too worried to leave him alone for the night—but try explaining that to his father.

Finally, Ben realized that the lights were off. And that was unusual. Normally he staggered in, hit the switch out of reflex, and flopped onto the couch, more than drunk enough to pass out no matter how bright the room was. He frowned. _Maybe the light bulb's burnt out?_ No, he'd just changed it a couple weeks ago. Strange.

He considered going back to sleep. Wasn't as if he had anything to actually do today. But the people sledgehammering his brain quickly convinced him that going back to sleep without getting some aspirin was a lost cause. Ugh. Flopping around into a sitting position, he nearly kicked something on the floor next to him. Looking down he saw a roughly half-full glass of water that he knew hadn't been there when he left. And there was no way he'd dragged himself into the kitchen last night.

"This is getting weird..." Maybe he'd just been more drunk than usual? Typically he plastered himself into an exhausted stupor and then left, but of course, that could be difficult to judge while drinking. Probably a skill he could hone with a bit of practice. If he really wanted to. He certainly _didn't_, so he drained the glass in one gulp and started to stumble towards the bathroom. Medication, shut the sledgehammers up, and then he could sleep for the rest of...

He stopped in the kitchen, which was distinctly _different_. It took him a minute to work out why, and his eyes finally fell on the counter. The counter was the only flat surface in the house not covered in research materials, so the piece of paper there now stuck out even to his hangover-addled mind. "Now this is getting... worrying," he mused, and even the sledgehammers paused for a moment to signal their agreement. Surely nobody had broken in?

There was a dark slip of plastic that he recognized as a credit card sitting on top of the paper. _Oh man_. Besides not driving, Ben's other immutable law of bar patronage was never to take any credit cards with him. Sticking with cash was a way of at least setting _some_ limit while still sober. He turned his attention to the paper, which turned out to be a note in unfamiliar, untidy scrawl.

_You dropped this in Watson's office yesterday. I figured you'd want it back. You were too drunk to open your door, so I did it for you. Drink lots of water and take some Advil or something. There's a juice mix in your refrigerator, it should make you feel better too_.

Short and to the point. No name, but a fuzzy image was coming to mind of a scruffy-looking kid trying to convince him to drink something. Checking the fridge, he found that there was indeed a large glass of what looked like all four fruit juices he had in the house mixed together. _Worth a shot_. He knew staying hydrated was important in these situations, and this was an approach he hadn't tried yet.

The juice did help a bit, but he still needed aspirin. Badly. So he resumed his struggle to reach the bathroom, now mentally kicking himself while he was at it. He was getting enough from his memory now to at least be sure it was the tech from the history department who'd shown up to return his credit card, and... what? Taken pity on him again, apparently.

_Even strangers think you're in bad shape. Get it together, Gates. You'll never find the treasure like this._

His eyes narrowed as he finally reached the bathroom, taking a minute to fumble with the "childproof" aspirin bottle. Ben knew from experience that nobody over the age of twelve could get the stupid things open in a timely fashion, sober or not. Finally he had his medication, and immediately felt a bit better, even though he knew it wouldn't really set in yet. With the sledgehammers calming, he had more time to focus on his irritation.

What was mostly annoying him was that he'd been caught, even if it was by a stranger. This really didn't happen all that often. Maybe every few months. Only when he ran out of leads—it would result in a devastating crash, a couple days of sulking, and then a renewed drive. Because Ben Gates would _not_ permit himself to just fall apart. He had a duty. He'd sworn he would continue the family legacy, and he fully intended to keep that promise. So maybe there were some speed bumps along the way. Big deal.

It wasn't the kid's fault, though. Actually, all things considered, he'd gone well above and beyond the call of duty, which was part of what bothered Ben so much. He'd long since stopped caring about what most people thought of him; 'most people' being the historical community. When everyone thought you were a crackpot, it was easy to develop a thick skin. Someone who'd actually been _helpful_ seeing him at such a low point was more grating.

There was also the fact that it would only be polite to thank the young man for returning the card, let alone everything else. He was sure that hadn't occurred to him in his drunken stupor. If only the kid had left his _name_...

Ben sighed and headed for his bed. First things first, he really needed to sleep off the rest of this headache. Then he could focus on etiquette—and hopefully soothing his wounded pride.

--

Lunch and Armageddon were conspicuously absent when he dragged himself back to the university at three that afternoon, but it was always best to be on the safe side. Ben made very, very sure the door to Dr. Watson's private office was firmly shut before slipping into the history department's main office and glancing around. No tech there. He hadn't really expected it, but he'd hoped.

A grandmotherly lady at the secretary's desk looked up at him and smiled. "May I help you?"

He nodded and stepped forward. "I was here yesterday for a meeting with Dr. Watson, and there was a young man here doing tech support who, um, gave me some advice. I'd like to talk to him, but I didn't catch his name. Would you know...?"

Her smile broadened. "Dark hair, skinny, talks to the machines?"

Considering his usual luck with research, the fact that she seemed to know exactly who he was talking about was a pleasant surprise. "Yeah, that's him."

"That's Riley... ah... Riley Poole. The tech office should be able to tell you where to find him right now."

_Riley_. He committed that, and her instructions to the tech office, to memory, and headed out. At least he'd succeeded in half of his mission. Now for the hard part.

--

The windowless cubicle which Human Resources called an office was nearly pitch black. Riley liked to keep the lights off—for one thing, his keyboard had lighted keys, and there was just no point in that if it wasn't dark. Also, his boss had forgotten more than once that he was even there that day due to the absence of light spilling out from the entrance. Not that he would _ever_ try to get out of doing work through subtle environmental manipulation. Usually he was more straightforward about work avoidance than that.

Nonetheless, it annoyed him slightly when he heard approaching footsteps. He'd hoped for a quiet day. _Oh well._ Hitting a button to pause and minimize his pinball game, he turned around to face whoever was approaching.

And there stood Benjamin F. Gates.

Riley just gawked for a few seconds, demanding that his brain stop playing tricks on him and tell him that yes, in fact, it was just his boss standing there, and that incident last night had messed him up a bit, and...

"Uh... Riley, isn't it?"

So much for that. "Uh huh." He wasn't too sure where to go from there. Well, he could ask if the guy was stalking him, but there was a very valid point Gates could make to counter that. Something about who was using whose kitchen again?

The other man seemed equally uncomfortable, but forged ahead anyway. "I just, um, wanted to say thanks for bringing my credit card back. I hadn't even noticed it was missing yet, trying to track it down could've been miserable." He spoke quickly. Whether nervousness or just because that was his usual habit, Riley didn't know, but nervousness seemed like a good bet.

_At least he's as confused as I am. That's a plus. Except then what's he doing here in the first place?_ Thanking him for returning the card seemed like a slim excuse, and they both seemed to know it.

He scrambled for something to defuse the tension, because just sitting there giving each other weird looks was very uncomfortable. "Uh. No problem. I wasn't expect—I mean, you'd spent an hour with Watson, could hardly blame you for uh... being out of it." Well _that_ had been smooth. So much for making this less awkward.

It looked like his visitor was trying to decide whether to laugh at that or not. Eventually he decided not—Riley really wished he would've. "Yeah, I..." Pause. Whatever he'd wanted to say, he suddenly didn't seem to think it was a good idea either. "Well, I'm kind of used to his type. I run into them all the time."

"Looking for Charlotte, right?" Ugh, what had made him blurt that out? Then again, if it would get the discussion into less strained territory, it was all good. And maybe he was just a little curious. "If you don't mind my asking, why are you looking for her anyway?"

He was thoroughly expecting to be told to mind his own business. What happened instead was Gates' eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. "She's part of a story that's been passed down in my family for generations..." And with that, he launched into his story, all nervousness gone from his tone in an instant.

_Way to go. So much for getting him out of here quickly._

At first Riley was just nodding and feigning interest since, after all, he'd asked. Around two minutes in, his interest was no longer feigned. He'd _heard_ of the Knights Templar, and of course he'd heard of the Freemasons, and that was about as far as his knowledge on either subject went. Certainly he'd never heard of the Founding Fathers hiding any treasure. The man who was now pacing in the limited floor space of his cubicle went into detail that would've been excruciating if his story weren't so fascinating...

The thing was, it was also ridiculous. Stories about hidden treasure were the sort of thing you told 7 year olds to get them digging in the yard instead of bothering their parents (not that Riley had ever fallen for that trick, of course). They weren't the sort of thing grown men traveled all over the East Coast researching. From a purely intellectual point of view, he could understand why Gates had been laughed out of all the history departments he claimed to have been. But the longer he listened, the harder it was to look at it like that.

This guy _believed_. He didn't care if he got laughed at. He didn't care what anyone else thought about his quest, _he_ knew the story was true. And to Riley's own surprise, he found that the older man's enthusiasm was contagious.

"...so that's how I ended up here. And, well, as you know, it was another dead end." For the first time since starting his explanation, Gates trailed off into some discomfort. "If I hit too many dead ends, I, uh... end up like last night. Then I refocus."

There was a bit of relief in his voice as he wrapped up, and Riley had a sneaking suspicion he knew why the man had really come to talk to him. Apparently, getting mocked by respected historians was fine, but a 21-year-old tech geek seeing him drunk had rattled him. Well, he'd already proven his outlook on life wasn't quite normal.

Something else about the treasure story was bothering Riley, though. To hear Gates tell it, he was working on this alone. And that, more than dead ends, really explained everything.

He leaned back in his chair and met the older man's gray eyes, which were now fully focused and fixed right back on him. "Y'know what, dude? You need help."

Gates sighed. "I keep being told that, yes."

_Oops_. He hadn't thought about how that could be taken. "I mean, you shouldn't be trying to do all that by yourself. It doesn't seem to be working too well."

"Oh. I've got a financier, he just doesn't like doing research. I'm not really working by _myself_."

Riley shot a significant look at the empty air next to where his visitor was standing. "Yes. Yes you are."

"Okay, maybe. But good help is hard to find when everyone thinks you're crazy, you know?"

"I don't think you're crazy."

As soon as he said it, he flinched. There were occasions when his mouth would engage before consulting his brain—generally this resulted in insulting someone, so he supposed it could be worse. But he really hadn't needed to mention that. It could lead to some questions he didn't want to answer.

Riley knew crazy. Riley had seen crazy. Benjamin F. Gates was not crazy. He was just a little weird, and there was nothing wrong with _that_.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and he was pretty sure they both knew what was coming next. The look on Gates' face was one of disbelief, as if not many people had said that to him before. Actually, judging from his story, that was a pretty safe bet. For his part, Riley knew potential when he saw it. Tech support was a decent distraction, even a good one. A treasure hunt, though... he wasn't sure if he really believed such a treasure existed. But looking for it had to be better than living in a cube, trying to convince people that they had to install software before they could use it.

And then there was the fact that the guy _did_ need help. Badly. It was a win-win situation.

"I'll help you out."

--

Ben waited until he was back in his car to pinch himself. He'd gone in hoping not to make a total fool of himself. He'd come out with... a _volunteer_. Part of him wondered about how quickly Riley had offered, but there was no doubt he needed all the help he could get at this point. Especially since Ian wasn't helping with the research.

Speaking of Ian... he pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

"Yes, hello?"

"Hey Ian."

"Ben!" His benefactor's voice always became cheerful, even excited, when Ben called. They both knew he was waiting on _the_ call, the one where finally Charlotte's secret was solved... but, given his own distaste for this part of the operation, Ian didn't press him. He understood that these things took time. "How are you?"

"Not bad." Ian _didn't_ know about the drunken episodes, and there was really no need to start mentioning them now. "I haven't found out anything new about Charlotte, but I did find someone else who's willing to help with the hunt; even the research angle. He's a computer specialist, too, which is sure to come in handy eventu—"

"Ben," Ian cut him off, "did you call to ask me about bringing someone else on board?" He sometimes forgot just how perceptive the other man was, too. His tone remained bright, but behind that cheerfulness it was unreadable.

"Well, yes."

"Don't be ridiculous! You don't have to _ask_ for that. You've spent your whole life looking for this treasure, I'm not about to argue about what you think is necessary for the search. Just tell me what you need."

And that was Ian. Complete faith in the mission and Ben's judgment on the matter. He hadn't really doubted it would be okay, but it was only courteous to be sure before getting to work.

_Two heads are better than one. Now let's see what we can do_.

Ben smiled as he thought about the small team he was assembling. _A team_. That word felt good. For the first time in a long while, things were looking up.


	6. Perception

**Convergence  
**Chapter Five: Perception

_A/N- Three(!) new chapters, because for some reason I just like uploading them in batches. Not sure why. Once again, thanks so much for the reviews! (And especially thanks for not killing me on poor Ben's behalf.) I haven't forgotten Vault of the Oracle, incidentally, I just want to get this one finished first.  
__Still don't own NT, blah blah blah..._

* * *

Ben hadn't really known what to expect when he'd brought Riley aboard. Certainly the tech seemed friendly enough, but still, they'd barely met. Yes, there had been some desperation involved. Yes, perhaps he should've thought about it a little longer, but it was too late now. Maybe he'd end up regretting it, maybe not. He'd never get anywhere without a few risks.

The day Ben really knew everything would be fine came in the middle of July, when he reached the door in response to frantic knocking and learned they'd gotten past bothering with 'hello'.

"Hey, Riley."

"About time. Are you _sure_ you don't want me to fix your doorbell?"

He took a moment for his brain to fully wrap around this unexpected greeting, then stood aside to let the young man in. "I'd love it. But I keep telling you, my landlord says no modifications to the property. Fixing the doorbell counts as a modification."

"I'll give him a _modification_. Let me at some tar and feathers... and jumper cables..." Riley threw his backpack at the couch and flopped down right after it. "It's ninety-seven degrees out there. And I've been beating on your door, which is pretty solid and makes boring conversation, for half an hour."

"Why didn't you just call?" Ben knew that when he was focused, actually hearing someone knock on the door was right out, so he was mostly inclined to believe the timeframe. It didn't explain why the tech hadn't used the same tactic that had gotten him into the house since the doorbell went out two weeks ago.

Riley held up his phone as if he'd been waiting for the question. "No battery."

_That'll do it_. "Sorry about that. I was kind of preoccupied."

"You? Preoccupied? Come on Ben, be serious," he smirked, "preoccupied doesn't _begin_ to cover you when you're working."

_Also true_. "Yeah, yeah. Well, take a couple of minutes to cool off while I go get my notes, I've got some ideas to bounce off you." Ben was used to working alone; he was just learning how helpful it could be to talk his theories out with someone else. The fact that Riley was far from a history scholar and had more questions than answers was an added bonus.

"Sure. I'm rubber, you're glue."

Ben snorted and returned to his room, gathering up his latest batch of research. When he returned, his companion was sprawled out reading a newspaper. "Anything interesting?"

"Hm, let's see... no. This isn't even news, look at this. Fishing boat sinks in the Potomac." Riley waved the newspaper in exasperation. "Not only does it tell how many fish they caught, it's even kind enough to tell us the name of the boat was the _Erika_—and what kind of name is that, by the way?" He shook his head. "I'm no expert on girls, but wouldn't most of them slap anyone who named a _boat_ after them?"

Ben laughed. "I don't know that it's a good idea, but it's pretty common practice for small vessels. Even commercial ships occasionally use femal..." He trailed off, eyes lapsing into distant half-focus as he stared past his young companion. All his other ideas were forgotten. "Female names..." It couldn't be. It _really_ couldn't be.

For a moment, Riley just looked back at him blankly, and then he could see comprehension slowly beginning to dawn. "There's no way it's that easy."

"It may just be that easy..."

"You've got to be kidding." The tech pulled out his laptop and started typing furiously. "After all the time you've been...?"

"This could be it! It's a better lead than anything else we've got."

"This is true."

Their eyes locked. It was all Ben could do not to leap out of his seat and rush out to the car immediately, but he wasn't working alone anymore. If this turned out to be the answer, then they had to find it. But they had to find it together.

Riley grinned. "What are we waiting for?"

--

When Ben had said he had a financier, Riley's mind had come up with images of his parents' social circle in Denver. Probably a stuffy old guy in a suit, scowling behind a huge cluttered desk—not too different from Dr. Watson, actually. Alternately, he could just be an elitist snob. So when they found the last sighting of the _Charlotte_ and learned that said financier was going to join the hunt in earnest, he'd immediately started preparing to deal with either type of person; mostly this involved trying to keep his mouth shut more often.

He had not been at all prepared for Ian Howe.

Ben had stopped bothering to lock his door when he was expecting company since the incident in July, which was helpful. Riley let himself in and pitched his backpack at the couch, as usual, then proceeded into the kitchen and paused. The table was covered in ocean charts—expected. Ben was hunched over the charts as if he'd never seen anything so fascinating in his life—also expected. The blond man seated across from him looking up and grinning was not so expected.

"Hello, you must be Riley." He was up and shaking the young man's hand before Ben had fully even looked up from his papers. "My name's Ian."

"Uh... hi?" Riley reclaimed his hand and backed off a step. He'd been ready to deal with a grouch; he had plenty of experience with that. But no. The guy was _friendly_. This development caught him entirely off guard, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from freezing up. As it was, he knew he looked like an idiot standing there stammering, but his usual response to being blindsided was to make fun of someone else. Probably not a good option here.

Ian cocked his head. "You all right?"

Regaining some fraction of his composure took supreme effort, but he forced a shrug. "Yeah, I just thought—I mean, I wasn't expecting, uh... I mean... it's just..." He coughed and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Mostrichpeoplearejerks."

He could see Ben raise an eyebrow as Ian took a minute to process this, then laughed. "Can't argue with that."

That pretty much ended the conversation, and Riley dropped into a chair with a sigh of relief. _Talk about getting off to a bad start_. The fact that Ian hadn't seemed at all offended by his reaction didn't really make him feel any better. Given some time to adjust, things would be fine. Until then... he started his laptop and tried to just pretend the last five minutes hadn't happened. "Find anything interesting yet?"

"A bit." Ben pushed a chart across the table. Of course, every map of ocean currents looked about the same to Riley, but the scribbled notes and large red Xs on this one made it clear what the points of interest were. "We know _when_ the Charlotte vanished, and we've got a rough idea of where. Thing is, having a rough idea isn't that much help—depending on exactly where it lost control, it could've ended up several different places. We've mapped out some of the most likely routes."

"Uh huh." A quick study of the charts on the table showed that about half had undergone similar marking. "Looks needlessly complicated."

The other two shrugged and Ian gave him a quizzical look. "Would you do it differently?" His tone was light, but there was definitely a challenge in there. And he looked fairly put off by the idea that they'd been doing it the hard way.

Riley nodded and pointed to his computer. "Setting up a program with all that information wouldn't be too hard. Then you just plot the ship's intended path and pick a spot, and the program could tell you where it would've ended up if it went off course there. You wouldn't need a million maps to keep track of it and computers, unlike people, don't make mistakes."

He only realized how he'd emphasized _unlike people_ when Ben shot him a searching look. It was the kind of look he usually reserved for history books and Riley didn't like it at all. _Careful. You know how much this guy loves questions. You don't want questions_.

Ian, too, was looking at him as if for the first time, but in his case that was forgivable. It was pretty close, after all. "Wouldn't be too hard? You can do it, then?" He sounded somewhere between skeptical and impressed. It was enough to make Riley think the other man hadn't taken him seriously at first...

Well, he did get that a lot.

"Sure, I can do it. It'll take some time though."

Both the others shrugged. "We've got time," Ben explained, "by the time we can get a diving expedition set up, it'll be winter. There's no way we're going diving that far north in winter."

"Sounds reasonable." He was only half paying attention. This was the first time since hacking Watson's database that his own talents had really come into play, and his brain had already clicked into tech mode. "Give me, uh, let's call it a week to be on the safe side, and I can have it done." He'd need the source data, of course... "Did you get those charts online?"

Ben gave him a look that clearly asked who did serious research _online_.

"Oookay, never mind, I'll find a site myself." He closed the laptop and looked up. "I'll go get started now."

"There's no rush, you can stay for awhile and—"

"Nahh." There was really no reason he couldn't work on the program right here, but something about Ian was still grating on him. Or maybe it was the whole situation. Right now he just needed to get out, reorient himself, and come back and try the whole 'meet the new guy' thing again later. On his terms this time, rather than being hit out of the blue with someone trying to be friendly. "I'll keep you posted." He bolted before anyone could argue.

That had _not_ gone the way it was supposed to.

--

"I don't think he likes me," Ian commented, turning back to the ocean charts and putting them back in their folders.

"Quite the opposite, I think. He's been expecting not to like you since I told him you were coming to work with us. He looked like his expectations just got blown to bits." Ben shrugged. "Most rich people are jerks, huh?"

"You spent enough time looking for a financier, you ought to know it."

"Very true." He watched the doorway where Riley had disappeared and found himself frowning. His forte was problem solving, and it was all he could do not to apply that skill to what had just happened. _Computers, unlike people, don't make mistakes_. The vehemence in that statement had been jarring from someone who was usually quite easygoing, if a bit on the cynical side.

"Worried?"

"Not really. We'll see him again in a week, like he said. Riley throws himself into his work like no one I've ever met."

"Except you, I trust." There were equal parts of admiration and amusement in Ian's voice.

"No, not except me. I throw myself into my work because I'm determined. He acts more like he's trying to... I don't know, like it's an alternative to something he really doesn't want to do."

"Hm." Ian pushed a folder away and leaned back in his chair. "Well, he seems clever enough. Do you think he can really make that program he offered?"

"If he says he can do it, I believe he can do it." Voicing that surprised him. Though he'd met the young man working tech support, nothing they'd done so far had really involved computer skill beyond efficient use of Mapquest. And in fairness, Riley _was_ a bit of a goof. And maybe that was why Ben believed him; when Riley said something he didn't mean, it was pretty obvious.

"Excellent." With that, his companion tossed a pack of cards on the table. "So in the meantime..."

Ben groaned. "You _know_ I'm terrible at every card game known to man."

"Well, that's the general idea."

He rolled his eyes. Every time they got together this happened, as if there was some unspoken rule between them. He was pretty sure that nowhere in the informal contract they'd drawn up did it say_ I, Benjamin Franklin Gates, do hereby agree to play card games with Ian, in which I get brutally mauled, at the drop of a hat_. So he shrugged. "What're we playing?"

--

The information he kept getting from his program was enough to convince Riley he'd done something very wrong. Never mind how often he'd checked things over. There was just no good reason a ship which had gone missing just a little north of New England should be ending up where his test projections kept landing it.

Two more attempts at troubleshooting convinced him that maybe he should do a little research on the topic. What he found was that actually, there _was_ a good reason his computer wanted the _Charlotte_ to end up in the Arctic. He went over the information a few times, committing it to memory; tech jargon was one thing, hydrothermic properties and semi-solid migrating land masses were outside of his area of expertise. _And here I figured weathermen had easy jobs_.

It was all very interesting, he supposed. But he was a little more worried about what it meant for their expedition. When he'd left Ben and Ian four days ago, they were talking about prepping for a _dive_. Along with the ocean charts, he'd found actual ocean floor surveys of several of the areas in question, in the process learning where the _Charlotte_ wasn't. And that was underwater.

Oh no, a dive would be too easy. Their ship was stuck in a block of ice.

He reached back and took his phone off the front seat. "Hey Ben, it's Riley. Yeah, it's going great, I'm bringing it over now. This is gonna be easier to show you than to tell you."


	7. Intensity

**Convergence  
**Chapter Six: Intensity

* * *

August had mostly consisted of abstract strategy discussions and long poker games. Riley had actually never played poker before, but with competition like Ben, he at least managed not to outright lose that often. The treasure hunter was undoubtedly brilliant, but hiding his thoughts wasn't one of his stronger traits. Big surprise there.

Then came September, and someone decided it was time to get down to the real work before winter rolled in and made a mess of logistics. That meant things became serious. It also meant... more people and longer poker games.

The second round of introductions had gone much more smoothly than Riley's first meeting with Ian, partly because he'd been given plenty of warning this time. Mostly, though, it was because Ben hadn't met the rest of Ian's team either, meaning the younger man could just hide behind a computer and let him do all the talking. Ben was good at talking.

Ian had four henchmen. He indicated they'd been working together for quite some time, but didn't really specify what they _did_. Something about being 'business associates' was all he'd say. Riley had his opinions, of course...

Most of these were inspired by Shaw, Ian's right-hand man. He generally stood around playing grim overseer, rarely speaking unless he had something particularly important to say. Actually his main talent seemed to be keeping his companions in line. But what bothered Riley wasn't what Shaw did, it was what he failed to do. And that was mention his first name. Ever. Even when being introduced. People with no first name were inevitably bad news, and so the young tech resolved to keep an eye on him. Or even better, stay away from him.

Igor Powell and Viktor Shippen did the grunt work, and seemed to spend most of their time arguing about soccer. Or at least, that was what they did when Shaw's back was turned. Other than that, Riley wasn't too sure. Igor seemed genuinely interested in what they were doing, though; he kept asking questions, and was solely responsible for at least fifty percent of the historical lectures Ben gave while they were working. Rumor had it Viktor was the team's designated driver and nearly got them killed twice a week. So that was another thing to remember—never get in a vehicle with Ian's gang.

Then there was Phil MacGregor, who handled the technical side of things. Riley had been gearing up for a good old-fashioned vendetta and then, to his surprise, found that Phil had no problem with someone ten years younger than him knowing more about computers than he did. It evened out, anyway. Riley knew computers, but Phil was the expert on most of the other equipment.

His own work had largely been based around refining his tracking model. It was all well and good for the _Charlotte_ to be somewhere off northern Greenland when they were deciding whether they needed boats or snowmobiles. If they planned to actually find a _ship_, on the other hand, 'northern Greenland' just wasn't going to cut it. What this meant was that while everyone else was stuck doing work, Riley got to do programming.

"Hey Riley, could you come take a look at this?"

Well, most of the time he got to do programming.

"No problem, Phil. What'd you break this time?" Vendetta? Of course not. Friendly rivalry? Well that was just what happened when you put two technophiles in the same room.

The other man smirked and waved him over. "This GPS is acting up. I tried, but I just don't have your gift for insulting electronics into working properly."

"Ahh. Yeah, you've really got to have a detailed knowledge of the circuit psyche." Riley took the receiver and scowled at it. "All right, you obnoxious device, you've got about thirty seconds to prove that you know a lake from a water-filled hole in the ground."

Phil shook his head, grinning at his young companion's antics. "Detailed knowledge of the circuit psyche, huh?"

"Trick questions. It's important to get them confused so they don't know which way to glitch." When that didn't get a response, he glanced up and made his usual offer in such situations. "I can keep going all afternoon if you want."

"Someday, I'm going to take you up on that, but not until we've got an audience."

--

Ben barely bothered to look up when the door opened anymore, but the muffled cursing and yelping in Igor's familiar accent convinced him to go have a look. What he found in the front room was the stocky Russian sprawled on the floor with several metal detectors on top of him. "You okay?"

"Nothing hurt but my pride," Igor mumbled. "Those stairs, they're a menace. Viktor had the right idea, stayin' behind to park..."

Ben reached down and helped him to his feet. "Sorry about that." His new apartment was centrally located and had a functioning doorbell, both of which were important now that it had become the command center for the _Charlotte_ expedition. But the stairs _were_ a bit of an issue considering all the equipment being moved in and out.

"Why d'you need these anyway?" Igor inquired, starting to pick up the detectors. "We're looking for an old ship, won't it be all wood?"

"Mostly. Some parts will be metal though, most importantly it should have a nameplate somewhere on the hull. Besides, we don't know what kind of cargo she was carrying." The other man nodded his understanding. Of all those involved in the hunt, Igor seemed the most interested in the story, as opposed to the treasure—or in Riley's case, the distraction. "These in for storage?"

"Not yet. Warehouse flooded, gotta have the techies check 'em out. Pretty big mess, really. Ian and Shaw'll be here in another hour or so, they're sortin' through the rest of it." He shouldered the detectors. "They in the back room?"

"Yeah. Phil's checking out the GPS systems and Riley's... well, he's doing something on his tracking program."

Though he wouldn't admit it to the others (he had something of a reputation to uphold), even Ben could only focus on some aspects of treasure hunting for so long. Working out travel details this far in advance was one of them. So he decided to take a well-deserved break and check up on the two who'd been in his study for the last hour and a half.

Riley was actually nowhere near the computer, instead sprawled on the floor poking at a GPS receiver. Phil was with him, but stood as soon as they entered, relieving Igor of the metal detectors. "What's all this for?"

"Flood in the warehouse. A few aren't working, Ian wants them all checked out. Said he figured you two could fix 'em pretty quick." He turned and slipped out of the room before anyone could suggest that he help them.

Ben laughed at the nasty look Phil shot after his departing comrade, and went to clear off his desk so they'd have a place to work. "Do you need any help?"

"Nah, we should have things covered." He opened a panel on the top device and scowled at what he saw there. "Ugh, what a mess. This is gonna take forever... hey Riles, do you have the wire cutters?"

Riley, who'd been moving over to the desk wearing his most businesslike expression, froze. His eyes clouded and went... well, it could really only be described as _empty_. Ben took a step toward him. His first thought was that his friend looked very ill.

"Riley?"

Phil glanced over and his eyes widened. "Riles, man, what's—"

"Don't call me that!"

The young tech's voice was low and cold, almost unrecognizable. Ben recoiled. He didn't sound angry, really, just... hollow. The same as his eyes.

"Don't call me that..." It was only a whisper now. And then, before anyone could react, he darted out of the room. Ben heard a door slam, then he and Phil exchanged concerned looks. _What in the world...?_

A blond head poked in through the doorway, looking confused. "Is everything alright? The kid just about ran over us while we were coming in." Shaw appeared next to Ian, looking distinctly ruffled. "What happened?"

Phil shook his head. "I think I offended him."

Though he decided not to comment, Ben somehow didn't think that was the problem. Riley hadn't looked like someone who was offended._ That wasn't indignation. That was fear_.

--

Looking back, Riley would be very surprised that he made it out of the building without severely injuring someone, most likely himself. He hadn't been paying any attention to where he was going until he found himself sitting on the sidewalk. All he knew was he had to run. To get out.

_Because that's how you handle all your problems, isn't it? Run away_.

His eyes narrowed and he leaned back against the cool brick wall, trying to get his panicked breathing under control. Matter of fact, that _was_ how he handled all of his problems. There was more than one reason he lived in a van rather than somewhere more stationary. It wasn't a reflex he was ashamed of, annoying voices in the back of his mind notwithstanding. It was how he'd survived so far.

Then again, 'so far' had involved working alone in a cubicle and ignoring everyone he wasn't actively mocking. Actually working together with other people was a little different. And now that first reflex might be problematic.

_God, that was stupid_.

His outburst was sure to raise questions. Of course it would. How could it not? He was pretty sure he'd never done anything to hint that he might snap like that, let alone over such a simple thing. Phil couldn't have known, couldn't have had any idea.

_Riles_.

Just thinking the name made him shudder, and he had to fight to keep his breathing even. Only one person called him Riles. Only _one_. Nobody else had ever been allowed to use that name, and nobody else ever would.

Footsteps came up behind him and he frowned. Just someone else leaving their apartment. Definitely just... when the footsteps stopped just beside him, he bowed to the inevitable and looked up. Sure enough, Ben was standing there. _Wonderful_. This couldn't go anywhere good.

The older man didn't say anything, which was somewhat disconcerting. He just stood back and watched as Riley slowly started to pull himself together, which really wasn't that easy with someone staring at him. As soon as he'd calmed enough to speak, he looked up. "Hello." Immediately he regretted saying anything, because that hadn't come out at all as calm as he'd been hoping for. And it would probably prompt Ben to ask something stupid, like—

"Hey. You okay?"

Like that.

Riley shot him a scowl. _Do I look okay?_ "Yeah, fine." If he was really going to ask a question that dumb, he could hardly expect a serious answer.

"Uh huh." Understandably, Ben did not sound convinced. He sat on the sidewalk next to the young man and looked up into the cloudless sky. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"Yeah." It was—sunny, not too hot, not too cold—but they were certainly not out here to discuss the weather. Then again, if Ben wanted to give him an excuse, that was fine. "I just, uh, needed to get some fresh air." _Yeah. Because he's going to believe the guy who spends twelve hours a day indoors poking at his laptop had a sudden urge for fresh air_.

His companion nodded wisely. "That always helps."

"Helps?" It came out before he could stop it.

"Helps clear your mind, if something's bothering you." Ben grinned, looking as close to sheepish as Ben Gates ever got. "It's a lot less desperate than getting drunk, anyway."

"Granted."

Riley kept waiting for something else. There had to be something else, because this was Ben, and he asked questions. That was just what he did. But he remained silent, watching the traffic pass by. The silence got unnerving pretty quickly.

"Shouldn't you be working?"

"It's just travel arrangements. Hardly urgent." Thankfully, he refrained from pointing out he wasn't the only one who was supposed to be working right now. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost."

He probably hadn't been looking for a laugh, but Riley laughed anyway. _You have no idea_. "I'm fine, I just really don't like being called that. I overreacted, that's all." That would probably put him in the running for the Understatement of the Year award, but it was probably his best bet at this point. "Just, uh, I need a little time to, you know, cool off. I'll come back up in a couple minutes."

"If you're sure..."

"I'm sure."

Ben stood and gave him one last searching look. Riley hated those looks, and he'd been earning an awful lot of them lately. _I've got to be more careful_. This job was supposed to keep his mind off of his problems, not make them worse. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all to join up with someone whose natural curiosity made cats look downright complacent. _Go on, you know you want to ask more, get it over with_.

"Okay, I'll take your word for it." Ben gave him a nod and headed back in, leaving the tech to stare blankly after him.

So much for expectations.

--

"He'll be back soon," Ben answered Phil's unspoken question as soon as he walked in the door. "You just... riled him up a little."

It had been a truly horrible pun, and he couldn't blame everyone in the room for groaning. He wasn't so sure Ian had needed to _hit_ him, but hey, to each their own. The joke served its purpose, at least: nobody asked any more questions. Because even if Ben could've answered them, he wouldn't have.

Riley didn't like questions. That much was painfully obvious. He was determined to respect that, for one thing just because it was polite. For another thing, he _did_ owe the kid. And he needed his help. No sense chasing him away by making him uncomfortable. Yet trying to avoid questions kept raising new ones, and he kept coming back to the most glaring.

_Why?_


	8. Assurance

**Convergence  
**Chapter Seven: Assurance

* * *

As it turned out, no major emergencies had come up in planning, so things slowly lapsed into less work and more card games. Ben was pleased. The group was coming together well, and they were done in plenty of time for the holidays. Now, sitting alone in his apartment, he was starting to get very twitchy. Even by his standards.

_We're so close_. He wanted to just go, now. Everything was ready. Waiting was getting to be physically painful. The Charlotte was haunting his dreams, and when he wasn't asleep it kept barging into his thoughts. But no. After all his searching, he'd finally found it, and now the search was being delayed by _weather_.

Spring seemed to be best. Winter was dangerous, and summer ran the risk of the landmass melting away, which could obviously complicate things. Fall would've worked if it weren't pretty much over, which was contributing to his frustration. If only he'd found it sooner. Just a little sooner and they could be there now...

That train of thought wasn't getting him anywhere, so he resolved to abandon it and do something productive. But nothing was actually coming to mind, so he sighed and hunted down his phone.

It took several rings before a groggy voice answered. "Hello?"

"Riley, did I wake you up?" There wasn't a clock in sight, but a glance out the window reassured Ben that the sun was out and he wasn't calling at some absurd hour.

"Is it morning?" the young man retorted, presumably disagreeing with Ben's definition of absurd. "No big deal though, what's up?"

"I was just wondering how your new program's coming." Riley had started to work on a weather model, predicting the optimal time for their expedition. Personally, Ben felt 'spring' was sufficient, and Ian agreed, but the tech had insisted he needed something to do. He'd missed several meetings for this, which was probably a plus in his book.

"Oh, yeah. I was gonna give you an update on that later today. I can drop by, give me fifteen minutes?"

_Geez. I wake him up and now he's going to come over?_ "There's no rush. Go back to sleep for a bit. Or I can come over to your—"

"I'm awake now anyway. See you soon!"

Riley hung up before Ben could argue any further, leaving the older man shaking his head in bemusement. "What a nut."

He spent about ten minutes pacing around the apartment, still restless, then saw the battered van pulling up outside. _Speaking of how weird he is_... the choice of vehicle had always amused him. _He's early._ That, at least, wasn't a surprise. For all his laid back attitude, the one thing Riley never was was late.

The apartment was suddenly feeling too constraining, so he gestured out the window for his visitor to stay put, then jogged down the stairs and outside. "Hey! How many traffic laws did you break on the way here?"

"None, it's only illegal if you get caught... hop in before the cops catch up, would you?"

Ben chuckled and clambered into the passenger seat. "If I hear any sirens, should I jump out?"

"Up to you. Just make sure you jump before I start moving, or it could be painful." He grinned. "Getting cabin fever already, huh?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh huh. I'm talking about how you'd go up north in the middle of January with nothing but a box of matches if we'd let you. We won't, so instead you're stuck losing at poker and waking me up at ungodly hours. You need to _relax_, Ben." He threw his arms behind his head and leaned back, as if suspecting Ben needed a demonstration of what 'relaxing' looked like. "For starters, sleep in. Happy people don't get up before noon."

"We really need to work on your historical education. Take Benjamin Franklin. Early to bed, early to rise—"

"Makes a dude want to gouge out his eyes. Next?"

That took the wind out of Ben's sails. "Okay, maybe we'll skip that."

"Good call." Riley picked up his laptop. "The program's pretty much done. I'm still adding the last bits of information, but I doubt anything will change now. It keeps looking like the earlier we go, the better, which I'm sure won't bother you at all..." He shrugged. "Early March."

"Sounds good." It was certainly more to Ben's liking than the initial guesses of early April. Of course, he'd be happier with February... or December... or next weekend... he shook that off. "Will you be able to go then?"

He'd been expecting a yes, or a no, or a frantic search for a schedule, or anything but Riley giving him a look of complete surprise. "Wait, what? Go? Go where?"

"To Greenland, silly." The kid had just woken up, maybe he was still a bit out of it. "You know, to find the _Charlotte_?"

"Well yeah, but... I didn't know you wanted me to come _with_ you."

_Is he kidding?_ "Of course we do! You didn't think we were just going to have you do all this work then take off without you, surely..."

He looked startled, and covered it with, "Riley. Not Shirley."

Ben rolled his eyes. _But if he hasn't been expecting to go along, then_... "Will you be able to make it?"

"Oh, sure, no problem." No hesitation.

Not for the first time, Ben found himself wondering whether the young man had anything to do with himself other than help search for the treasure. He'd dropped his tech support job pretty much the day he'd offered to join in—and that was _before_ being officially hired, which had seemed to surprise him. So presumably he had some other means of support, and Ben hadn't a clue what that might be.

_Most rich people are jerks._ He raised an eyebrow and suddenly wondered where Riley would get that idea, considering how and where he spent his time. Of course, the kid didn't like questions, but there were some basics that surely couldn't hurt. "You know, I just realized. Where do you live anyway? I never got your address."

"There's a good reason for that, you're sitting in it."

It took a few moments for that statement to fully register, and Ben shot him an incredulous look. "You... wait. Riley, you live in this van?"

"Uh-huh."

There were some things that were just impossible to reply to, and this was one of them. If he'd so much as imagined their resident tech was living in a vehicle, Ben would've... well, he wasn't sure, but he would've done _something_. He'd driven himself nearly into poverty searching for Charlotte. (Actually, most of the Gates family had done the same thing.) But at least he'd always had a roof over his head.

Riley did not help the awkwardness of the situation by bursting into laughter. "You should see the look on your face. Don't worry, I get showers. There's—"

"That is _not_ what I'm worried about!" It had probably been meant as a joke, but he was too worked up to care now. Logistics were the last thing on his mind. "Why didn't you say anything? We could've... I don't know, we could've..."

"Yeah, that's why I didn't say anything," the tech interrupted with a long-suffering sigh. "Believe it or not, I actually like living in here. It's not... well, have a look in the back."

Ben turned, craning his neck to look over the seat, and his eyes widened. "Whoa." The rear seats had been ripped out, making room for a mad tangle of wires and equipment. He noted several pillows and a blanket tucked in one corner, a Star Wars poster plastered to the ceiling, and at least three computer screens casting soft light over the vehicle's interior. It was hardly the image of abject poverty that _living __in a van_ usually brought to mind. "Riley, that's... amazing."

"Isn't it?" He was grinning now. "I don't mention it because people go all weird like you did. But it's not like I'm stuck living here if I didn't have to, it's just _home_." He leaned over the steering wheel and raised an eyebrow. "It's how I roll."

"Literally."

"Literally," he agreed with a smirk. "You've been searching for this treasure so long, you'd probably understand. I don't like being tied to anything, or anywhere."

Ben nodded. His search for Charlotte had taken him all over the country. Home for him was still in DC, but he knew exactly where Riley was coming from. "So is it safe to assume you're not from around here?"

"Nope."

"Where then?"

A brief hesitation. "Colorado." It was amazing how quickly the kid could lock up. His tone had gone suddenly flat, and when Ben looked at him he saw the brilliant blue eyes narrow slightly. "I left there awhile ago. Never looked back."

That was not a subtle suggestion to change the topic, it was more like dropping an anvil. But the answers he'd gotten only sparked Ben's curiosity more. _Never looked back... not tied to anything_. He was slowly realizing there was far more to Riley than he'd first imagined. Still, if the kid didn't want to elaborate, he was going to do his best to respect that.

He looked back again. "It's impressive really. I don't know how you manage. I mean, surely you can't cook in here?"

The dark look fled Riley's face immediately and he giggled. "Ben Gates, please join the rest of us in the 21st century. There's these places called restaurants that you can go in, and they'll make you whatever food you want."

He scowled. "That's not the same!"

"No, it's not. Way easier and you don't have to do the dishes."

"There is no response I can possibly make to that." Ben leaned back and looked over the young man in the driver's seat. He was built about like a toothpick; whatever he was doing wasn't working so well. _All right then_. "Okay, Riley. If that's how you feel, I need you do do me a favor."

"Such as?"

_Careful_. He had a feeling that if the kid suspected charity or pity, he'd reject anything. "I actually happen to enjoy cooking," which was true, "and cooking for only one person is kind of depressing and not covered in most of my recipe books." Also true. "So maybe you could drop by sometimes to make it worthwhile?"

Riley arched an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. He wasn't buying it. But then, much to Ben's surprise, he shrugged. "I'll think about it?"

That was probably the best he could ask for, so he took it.

--

No matter what he'd said about thinking about it, Riley had no intention of taking Ben up on his dinner invitation. In fact, he conveniently hit a serious snag on his weather model the next day, and very badly needed to find some better data. He couldn't even make the usual poker games. So rather than dropping by for dinner on occasion, the tech found himself staying in his van doing research for the next several days.

Or at least he'd fully intended to do research. Actually he wound up mostly playing computer games, but it wasn't like he was in any hurry. He could largely avoid the others until March. By then, Ben would have other things on his mind.

His plan might have worked out, too, if he hadn't been parking so close to the apartment since it became operational headquarters. But he had. And so a week after the invitation, he was just sitting up front, reading a book and minding his own business, when he saw Ben slowly making his way down the nearest sidewalk. 'Close' driving and 'close' walking were two different things, and he couldn't imagine what the older man would be doing here on foot. Unless...

_Oh. That's not so good_. He stuck his head out the window. "Hey Ben!"

"Riley?"

"What're you doing out here?"

That came out a little more suspicious than he'd intended, and Ben visibly flinched. "Just going for a walk... you know, get some fresh air..." The guy really wasn't any good at bluffing. Riley didn't even have to say anything before he sighed. "Okay, maybe get a drink or two."

"Or six?"

"Or six."

Riley jumped out of the van and shook his head. "Dude, that is not healthy, you know."

"That's the general idea. It's like I told you, it takes a pretty good crash to refocus—"

"Yeah, but we haven't hit a dead end now." He gave Ben a knowing look. "Cabin fever again?"

"No, no." His companion sighed and leaned on the hood of the van. "I was supposed to be going to my dad's for Thanksgiving. He had a work emergency come up. We're not all that close, but..." He shrugged helplessly. "I look forward to the one day a year we're not at each others' throats."

Riley felt a pang. It had never even occurred to him to wonder about Ben's family. He'd love to offer advice, if only he had advice to give. But in _his_ family, the entire significance of the holiday had been three days off school. "What'll you do then?"

"Eat turkey by myself and have lots of leftovers, I guess." He sounded less than enthused. "I'll get over it."

"That's why you're going out to get drunk."

"Yeah. I've found that a good hangover is a great way to gain some perspective. Feel bad? Get drunk, you'll feel worse."

"Sounds like a pretty depressing outlook." Riley flopped on the hood next to him and stared at their reflections in the windshield. _How does this guy manage?_ His own life had been pretty much built on dodging questions, and Ben's almost painful honesty never ceased to amaze him. _He spends his whole life being called crazy, and he still never stops to think maybe he can't trust everyone_... he very deliberately derailed that train of thought. If he wasn't careful, he'd start getting jealous.

Actually, it was too late for that.

"Maybe." The reflection-Ben's eyes met Riley's gaze. "It works, though. Not to say I like it... I'm open to other problem-solving suggestions."

_Sure. Run away, forge some records, and build yourself a completely new life_. "You don't have to fling yourself headfirst at a problem like you're jumping off a cliff, you know. Sometimes it's best to stop and take your mind off it for awhile."

Ben cocked his head. "Maybe. But eventually you've still got to deal with it. I'd rather just have the hangover tomorrow and get it over with."

"Then what if his plans change again? You get to have dinner with him after all and you plastered yourself to your couch for no reason."

The older man laughed. "You're persistent."

"Yep." _You know what you have to do_. _If it'll help... _"So in the meantime, will it make you feel better if I drop by on Thanksgiving? Just so you're not totally by yourself."

Ben looked startled. "You mean you don't... no, I suppose you'd have mentioned it by now if you were going back home, wouldn't you?" Riley nodded, earning a frown. "Don't tell me you'd be staying in DC and going to a restaurant."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Riley, Thanksgiving is a great American holiday full of history and tradition, you can't honestly intend to spend it at a _restaurant!_" He stood up and crossed his arms. "Not only will it make me feel better if you come by, I'm going to have to insist on it."

Though he couldn't help thinking he was about to learn much more than he'd ever wanted to know about Thanksgiving history and tradition, Riley grinned. "Fair enough. Assuming you turn around and stay away from any alcohol between now and then. I'll know. I'll set up spy cameras in your apartment. You'll think you're watching TV, but in reality, the TV will be watching you!" He punctuated the threat by lunging forward and shaking Ben by the arms. "Don't make me go all CIA on you!"

"Domestic surveillance would be the FBI, but point taken," Ben chuckled, backing away to reclaim his limbs from the tech's grip. "I suppose you're right... best to stop making a habit of this."

"Good call. Leave the habits to nuns." Riley considered his options. He could let Ben leave and go back to researching weather patterns, or he could make absolutely certain the man didn't slip away and go get drunk anyway. Tough choice. "In the meantime, since you're out already, want to go see if there's any good movies showing?"

It would only occur to him much later that the last person he'd gone to a movie with—voluntarily, anyway—was his brother.

--

Ben's mother was a Native American scholar, and his father was a Gates. This was the type of family that could give a kid a very complex understanding of Thanksgiving. His childhood picture of the holiday was one thing, but the quiet affairs with his father lately were something else entirely. For the sake of tradition, they'd get together, but it was always strained. He'd had such high hopes this year... entertaining the thought that maybe, if he could just tell his dad about the _Charlotte_, it could break through the old man's doubts. But no. That much-vaunted _steady job_ had to get in the way.

So much for history. So much for tradition.

He had no idea what Riley's traditions might be like, but the fact that he usually spent Thanksgiving in a restaurant had told him there wasn't much to worry about. Now he was starting to wonder. The kid had barely touched his food—and it wasn't that it seemed not to _like_ it. Quite the opposite, he claimed to be greatly impressed with Ben's cooking. He just kept drifting away, as if he were forgetting where he was, let alone what he was doing.

At first, Ben figured he was just uninterested in the holiday's cultural impact for Native Americans, and resolved to tone down on the lecturing. When that failed to change anything—other than filling the room with uncomfortable silence—he started to get worried. "Riley, are you okay?"

"Huh?" The younger man jumped and looked at him. "Yeah, why?"

Ben almost laughed. Almost. "You aren't acting fine."

"I'm not?" He sounded genuinely confused, which only worried him more.

"You keep spacing out."

"Oh." He nibbled distractedly on a piece of turkey while considering this. "Sorry. This is just kind of weird, that's all." Immediately he winced, as if worried he'd said something offensive. "I mean..."

"I think I know what you mean. When's the last time you had a home-cooked meal? Holiday or otherwise."

"Um..." The fact that he had to think about it for so long made Ben's heart ache. "Been about... uh, five years I think?" Five years. If Riley was twenty-one, that meant... since he was sixteen? _Not even an adult. Good god. He's been living like this for that long? _"It was weird then too," the young man offered helpfully when he kept staring.

It occurred to Ben at that moment that Riley had never said a word about his family. The closest he'd ever come was describing his departure from Colorado—that he'd never looked back. That he wasn't tied to anything...

He hadn't pressed the issue at the time, but now he couldn't help it. There were so many questions, so few answers, and he just had to ask. Had to.

"Riley."

"Yeah?"

_Ease into it_. "How did you end up in this area? I mean, most people don't leave the glorious mountain splendor of Colorado for the crime and pollution of DC."

"You would," he deflected.

_Granted_. "Well, yes, but I don't think anyone would describe me as normal."

Riley giggled. "That's for sure." Then his expression shifted. It wasn't the first time Ben had noticed the way his eyes could go so cold in an instant. It _was_ the first time he'd met that suddenly-intense gaze head on, and it startled him, all but pinning him in place. "Why does it matter?"

Why indeed? Pure curiosity was not the right answer to this question, even if it was the truth. But seeing Riley's expression, he didn't think that _was_ the truth. There was more to it than that.

"Because I'm worried about you."

A flicker in his eyes. Not the answer he'd expected, clearly. Or was it something else? "Worried, huh?" He shifted in his chair, but didn't break eye contact. "It's not something to worry about. It's just that... well, you've had those moments. Where you just have to go, to get away."

Yes. Yes, Ben had those moments. Riley knew it better than anyone. "I can understand that. But across the country?"

Pause. "Then if I told you..." He trailed off, frowning, then nodded. "If I told you that I'm running from something?"

Somehow, the revelation didn't surprise Ben in the least. What surprised him was the lack of fear in his companion's voice. Whatever he was running from didn't frighten him, not in itself. It was just out there, menacing. _He's not afraid of it, he's just afraid to talk about it?_ That possibility cut off his initial impulse, which was to ask what the kid was running from. And he found that really, knowing what served no purpose. Unless it was illegal, what did it matter?

No, wait...

Even if it _was_ illegal, did it really matter? _Where would I be right now if he hadn't shown up?_ No doubt drunk and searching for ever more unlikely clues. Riley had his demons, demons greater than Ben had guessed, yet he seemed to have taken it upon himself to keep the treasure hunter out of trouble. And whatever his reasons, he'd come along at the moment Ben most needed someone to believe in him.

No, it didn't matter what Riley was running from, unless Riley wanted to tell him.

Calm gray eyes met fathomless blue. "I'd ask if I can help."

Silence reigned in the apartment for a very long time, and then the young tech did something very unexpected. His eyes brightened and he laughed.

"And Ben," he grinned, "just what do you think you've _been_ doing?"


	9. Affinity

**Convergence  
**Chapter Eight: Affinity

_A/N- Eurgh, it's been far too long since I got anything written. I blame classes. And hurricanes knocking out my internet for a week. (In Ohio, of all places. Dear Mother Nature: we are not amused.)  
__As always, many, many thanks for the reviews! _

* * *

"Why do I have this distinct feeling that you're all conspiring against me?"

Six voices immediately burst into strenuous denial, but the look the blond man swept over those assembled clearly said he wasn't fooled. Then Ian turned his attention to the table where his Christmas presents sat. Six identically sized packages.

He shook his head and picked up the top package. "Sure you're not. All right... To Ian, from Ben." The striped paper came off with three quick, efficient tears, leaving the package's recipient snickering. "Oh excellent, Ben, did you mark them first?" He held up the gift for all to see: a set of playing cards with the American flag on their backs.

Shaw passed him a second present. Even he was smirking, and that was just as clear a sign as the identical packages that something was up.

"To Ian, from Viktor." Another deck, but this one had a car design on the backs. Ian groaned. "You know, if you're all tired of losing at poker you could just _tell_ me."

"What do you mean all of us? You've only opened two of your presents," Riley pointed out, the very picture of wide-eyed innocence.

"Right, of course, how silly of me... here we go. To Ian, from Riley." He opened the package and frowned at the design on his third set of cards. "What exactly is that thing?"

"That, you poor culturally deprived soul, is a Pikachu."

"What's a Pikachu?"

"Don't ask!" Shaw growled under his breath. Powell had asked that when they were out buying the cards, resulting in a lecture on yellow electric rodents that could put one of Ben's historical rants to shame.

"All right, consider that question retracted."

Riley looked very annoyed by this, and covered it by tossing another package at him.

"To Ian, from Phil..." He rolled his eyes and looked around the group again, not moving to open the present just yet. Everyone was wearing their most angelic expression. Somehow, that just made them fool him less. "Which of you came up with this anyway?"

Nobody spoke, and a couple of voices were raised in protest, but no less than four people shot covert glances at Ben before returning their attention to the man opening presents.

Ian sighed in disappointment. "I suppose threatening to thrash you in the next game isn't really going to mean anything then, is it?"

--

Riley was flopped upside-down on Ben's couch, watching him clean up the wrapping paper strewn about the apartment. He probably should be helping, considering it was partly his fault it was all over the floor—he and Phil had gotten bored and started throwing the stuff at each other while Ian was opening his real presents. Maybe he'd pitch in if he were asked. Honestly, even cleaning had to be better than sitting here getting a headache, but he couldn't convince himself to move. Way too much coffee cake. _Why_ did Ben have to be such a good cook?

"Doesn't that hurt?"

He squinted in Ben's direction. "I'm sorry, didn't Powell leave with the others? Dumb questions are supposed to be his department."

"Hey now. Igor's just got a healthy dose of intellectual curiosity. I'd think you'd be okay with that, you know nobody _else_ here was going to let you explain what a Pikachu is." Ben pushed the bag of paper scraps away and gave Riley a concerned look. "All the blood's going to rush to your head, you know."

Riley grimaced. "Going to?"

"There, see? Why don't you move?"

_Excellent idea. I never would've thought of that on my own_. He tried to move as suggested, and suddenly realized he wasn't too sure how to get out of this predicament without breaking something. Probably something on himself. "I, uh... don't think I can," he mumbled, staring pointedly at the ceiling. He didn't have to be _looking_ at Ben to see the older man's smirk.

"I suppose that's a good reason." He walked around behind the couch. "Want me to help you with that before you get a headache?"

"Too late."

"That's a yes." Ben leaned over the back of the couch, grabbed Riley's ankles, and dumped him unceremoniously to the floor, ignoring the young tech's indignant squawk. "Feel better now?"

Before deigning to answer, Riley took a moment to make sure all his limbs were intact. Then he frowned. "Oddly, yes." To show just how much better he was feeling, he reached into the trash bag and pitched a wad of wrapping paper over the couch.

They stared at each other for a moment, then the apartment erupted into a brief but fierce paper-fight that pretty much reversed all of Ben's hard work. After about five minutes they stopped, as if by unspoken signal, and exchanged shrugs.

"You know, the paper can just stay there for awhile," Ben declared, sinking into a chair. "We'll call it a seasonal decoration."

"Good idea." Riley sprawled in the middle of the floor, taking up as much space as his wiry form could possibly take. It was much more comfortable than being on the couch—so much more comfortable, in fact, he decided he'd stay for awhile.

For awhile they just sat there. A month ago this situation would've had Riley beside himself with nervousness, waiting for the questions that Ben would inevitably come up with to break the silence. Or, more likely, he'd have rushed out to throw himself at some new project and avoid the situation altogether.

He'd let himself be pinned down on Thanksgiving, and been furious with himself for it. Even now he winced as he thought about his frantic scrambling to make up a story. What could he be running from, really? He'd settled on an overzealous ex-girlfriend when Ben asked him, not for clarification... but what he could do to help.

To _help_.

Riley hadn't actually said, "Stop asking me questions," but the net effect had been the same. It was almost as if that 'explanation' of his departure from Denver, barely scratching the surface as it did, had satisfied the older man's curiosity. Of course, that was impossible, but he hadn't brought up the subject again that night. Or the next. Or the next...

And slowly Riley felt his barriers easing up. Not falling, by any means, but perhaps undergoing a renovation. Maybe Gates had constructed a few gates. Just enough that now, sitting in his apartment on Christmas Eve, they had no need to speak. A silence that had once been oppressive was now calm and comfortable.

But it was still kind of weird, so he still didn't let it run _too_ long. "So we're not gonna see the Goon Squad until next year, huh?" He'd taken to calling Ian's crew the Goon Squad, not out of any personal malice, but simply because it amused him. From the smirk on Ben's face, it was clear it amused him too, though he'd hardly say so. "Too bad. I was so looking forward to getting Shaw drunk on New Year's... maybe find out his first name..."

Ben snorted. "Getting someone drunk before you even ask their name is not usually considered suave. Just saying."

"Oy." Riley shot him an offended look. "That was low."

"Sorry."

"Uh huh. I'd throw something else at you if I could be bothered to move. Curse you and your coffee cake." He returned his stare to the ceiling. "So what're you gonna do tomorrow?" Much like Thanksgiving, his family had never had any strong Christmas traditions. (Other than his parents going to dozens of parties and decorating the house to outdo all the neighbors, of course.) Living on his own had not made the holiday any more significant. He was curious to know how others spent the day.

When Ben grimaced, he remembered the Gates family wasn't all too typical either. "Probably just hang out here, maybe watch some football."

"You don't like football."

Ben shrugged.

"Dude." Riley sat up. "You make fun of me for going to restaurants on Thanksgiving, but you're just going to _watch football _on Christmas? Get real."

"So what do you suggest?"

Ouch, he'd walked right into that one. He cast about in his mind for a few moments, trying to think of nice, solid holiday traditions. _It's a Wonderful Life?_ Too sappy. Christmas cookies? No, Ben was almost as scary-serious about cooking as he was about history. Caroling? Yeah, right, Riley wanted to waste his holiday _singing_. His eyes flickered up to the frost-covered window and he grinned.

"You're pretty good at throwing wrapping paper, how are you with snowballs?"

--

_Now where did he go?_

Ben paused in the middle of the snow-covered street, eyes darting in every direction at once as he sought out the greatest threat to his current position. It wasn't the light traffic. It was the smart-mouthed tech who'd been making a fool of him all morning.

He'd actually thought the idea of having a snowball fight for Christmas had been a joke. Well, not so much. Otherwise he might've tried to come up with some sort of _real_ plan for the day. Then again, he was pretty sure no excuse would have worked.

As much as he usually tried to avoid expressing an opinion on Ben's family situation, Riley had been unable to hide his amusement that the Gates family traditionally got together on Thanksgiving but not Christmas. He considered this very significant. He was probably right. After all, Thanksgiving—as Ben had made very clear—was a great American holiday filled with history and tradition. Christmas was different, it was universal, it was wildly varied between cultures, it was...

_Whack!_

It was in the middle of winter. Right. He ducked behind Riley's van, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it out from behind his temporary shelter, not sticking around to see if it'd hit. A strangled yelp told him it had, for once. Riley was skinny and very quick; most of Ben's throws didn't get anywhere near him. _Maybe I should stop bothering to aim_.

He paused a moment to catch his breath behind the van, which his friend quickly protested. "Dude, using _my_ car as a fort is just insulting. Get out here and fight like a man!"

"You want me to hit a girl?"

"What are y—okay, that's it. No more Mister Nice Geek!"

"That's the third time you've said that since we came out here."

Riley didn't answer. That was worrying, so Ben knelt and tried to look beneath the van and see what the kid was doing. What he saw was a line of piled snow on the other side, that had probably been pushed up to prevent just such an attempt. _Uh oh_. He swung around, expecting to be hit from behind, but there was nothing.

Very worrying...

"BANZAIII!"

The yell came from his right and he turned, but not quite quickly enough. A dark shape that was briefly recognizable as human flew at him, and then he was sprawled out on the snow with Riley on top of him, and then the kid was gone. The only sign he'd been there at all were footprints leading back around the van, and what felt suspiciously like a snowball stuffed down the front of his shirt.

He reached up and poked the rapidly melting clump of frozen water, and shook his head. "I can't decide whether to come after you screaming for vengeance, or admit defeat."

"Well," the voice came from behind him, "I think surrendering would be in your best interests, but of course, I may be biased."

Ben craned his neck back as far as he could and saw Riley standing over him with at least six snowballs cradled in his arms, grinning like a madman. "Snowball fights are serious business, huh?"

"You bet."

"Well, I think you're right..."

His friend and current adversary raised an eyebrow.

"I think you're biased." He twisted around and rolled into Riley's legs, undercutting him and sending the young tech to the ground, where he landed face-first in his own load of snowballs. And with that, it was on again.

--

Riley sighed and laid back in the snow, grinning at the overcast sky. He felt good. Really good, actually. This was easily the best Christmas he'd ever had; not to say his previous ones had been bad, but there'd always been something lacking. Maybe it was authenticity. Ben didn't celebrate Christmas just because it was something he was expected to do.

Actually, Ben didn't ever seem to worry about what he was _expected_ to do. Despite himself, Riley was starting to really like the guy. He could almost even call him a friend.

That sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the snow. Because he could almost start to think he was better off now than he'd ever been in Denver. If he thought about that, he had to think about why... and not only did that bring up memories he'd prefer to avoid, he ultimately reached the simplest phrasing of the situation: he was _lucky_ his brother had gone off the deep end and killed a bunch of people.

He flatly refused to even consider that possibility, which left him in a rather awkward place. He almost found himself wishing something would go wrong. Anything, really. Anything for the world to remind him that he was here as punishment, because he'd failed his brother, and was not just in DC to goof off.

_You don't get to run away as far as you want to. You only get to run far enough to stay functional. Otherwise you're profiting from their deaths, and there's no _way_ you're going to do that._

As he was so very good at, Ben snapped Riley out of his dark thoughts with a few words. "You're going to catch a cold if you stay there. Come on, let's go get some hot chocolate."

Hot chocolate sounded really excellent right now, and he supposed laying in the middle of a snowdrift _wasn't_ going to do anything good for his health. He sat up and grinned wickedly. "Good plan. Besides, after that showing, you'll really need it too."

Ben snorted and offered a hand to help him up. "You know, I'm not sure you get to gloat about beating someone twice your age at a snowball fight. Now if... let's see... if you know something about history that I don't, that's something you can gloat about."

_Yeah, like that's gonna happen_. "I'll remember that." He took Ben's hand and hauled himself to his feet, groaning. They'd been at it for four hours—so he was a little sore, it wasn't like he got much exercise sitting at a keyboard 24/7. "I'll also remember that if I ever feel like joking about your age, you did it first."

Surprisingly, Ben just shrugged. _Oh, right. He likes history so much, he probably doesn't worry about being old_. But there was a hint of a grin on the other man's face.

The apartment seemed strangely empty with the Goon Squad gone, but at least the familiar clutter was still there; discarded wrapping paper and all. Ben didn't have a Christmas tree, but he'd hung ornaments from every conceivable hanging spot, an effect that was both festive and fairly chaotic. Riley liked it. Maybe he'd try something similar in his van next year.

Not even bothering to change out of his soaked clothes, Ben started his usual shuffling around the kitchen, pulling out the leftover coffee cake from the day before along with two mugs, milk, chocolate, and a bag of jumbo marshmallows. Then he frowned and held that last up for inspection. "I don't have any of the small kind, these'll have to do."

"Surely you're not expecting that to bother me."

"Not really."

They were silent for a little while. The few times in his life Riley had attempted to cook, distractions had tended to result in fires. He was pretty sure Ben was much better than that, but still, no sense tempting fate. It eventually occurred to him that he was dripping all over Ben's kitchen, and dry clothes were in order—or at least some blankets. Not that there were blankets lying randomly around the apartment, but he managed to find enough towels for both of them to wrap up in and pretend they had blankets, which was something.

He must've spaced out a bit after sitting back down, because the next thing that he consciously registered was a steaming mug with two enormous marshmallows floating in it being plopped down in front of him. He hadn't heard Ben coming up behind him, which was unusual; he was generally more observant than that. Oh well. He took a long sip of hot chocolate before turning his attention to the coffee cake and sighing. "Now was that really necessary?"

"I thought you liked it?"

"That's the problem."

"Ah, I see." Ben chuckled. "Have at it, it's Christmas."

"It's Christmas, so go on and stuff your face? I think I'm missing a key concept of the holiday here, but I'll take your word for it."

Another laugh. "Hey, if you're enjoying yourself, our mission's accomplished." He leaned forward. "This may come as a great shock to you, but I usually work on holidays."

Riley arched an eyebrow. "I'd never have guessed."

As the two worked at recovering from the snowball fight, he noticed that Ben kept shooting him odd looks across the table. That was vaguely annoying at first and rapidly made its way to outright worrying. _Did I let something slip? _Sure, Ben hadn't been pressing him since Thanksgiving, but if he'd said something to raise new questions...

Finally he couldn't take it anymore. "Something wrong?"

"Just thinking."

"You? Really?"

Ben graced him with a brief smirk before his expression turned serious again. "Yes, really. I just realized I haven't ever thanked you."

_Well that's different_. "Um... for what?"

"For what?" the other man repeated in disbelief. Then he hesitated a moment, as if he hadn't actually considered that question. "For... for _everything_, Riley!" He gestured expansively. "You know, everything you've done."

"Uh huh. I'm sitting in your kitchen, drinking your hot chocolate, eating your coffee cake, after pulverizing you with frozen water all morning, and you're thanking me."

Ben rolled his eyes. "No, but I _could_ thank you for that too. You'll notice I don't have any other friends helping me finish off my leftovers," he pointed out. "And if it weren't for you I'm not sure if we'd ever have found the _Charlotte_. Would've taken a lot longer, in any case. Not to mention that without you around, I'd have spent Thanksgiving at home alone watching football..." He sighed and looked at the table. "And would probably be sitting in a bar somewhere right now."

Riley went slightly red and buried his face in his hot chocolate to hide it. "No you wouldn't, bars aren't open on Christmas." The deflection sounded flat even to him. _It wasn't for you. Why are you thanking me? Don't you know this was just a distraction? ...Don't _I_ know this was just a distraction?_ _No. He needed help and I knew that, too._

He looked up again to see Ben's steel-gray stare fixed on him. "Sorry. I suppose that was a little unexpected." He leaned back in his chair. "I don't know, Riley. I don't think I know anything about who you are or where you come from, but you seem to want it that way, so I'll do my best to respect that. I don't know where I'd be right now if you hadn't come along. All I can really do is say thanks."

_Wait... did he just..._ "Look, Ben, you don't need to thank me."

"Maybe you don't think I do, but I feel better having done it." He shrugged. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

There was nothing he could really say as a reply to that, so he took a long gulp of hot chocolate to give himself some time to collect his thoughts. "Are you always like this?" he blurted finally, a bit of frustration seeping into his voice as his own greatest question barged to the front of his mind.

Ben didn't seem at all bothered, but gave him a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the way you talk, like..." He shook his head, searching for the words. "You just _talk_, you don't think about if it sounds weird, or you shouldn't be that open, like you don't mind saying everything on your mind, like you've never been—" Riley froze. Instantly. He hadn't meant to go quite that far... maybe the other man's seemingly endless honesty was getting contagious.

_There you go again. Just like Thanksgiving._

_No. No it's not._

Voices arguing with each other inside his head didn't make Riley feel any better about his mental state, but he let it go, because he realized in an instant that the second voice had been right. For so long, he'd conditioned himself to lock up at the slightest breach of his barriers. Now that Ben had found his way inside those walls—if only a little—he didn't know how to respond. And his reflexes had been blocking out an important realization.

It meant something, something important, that he was in this apartment on this day. Of course there'd been risks. Yet here he was, and here was the world's most obsessive historian, telling him that his past didn't matter. That the questions he couldn't answer were his secrets to keep. They didn't matter, because Ben valued him for what he'd done _here_, not for what was hidden in the years before they'd met.

Suddenly Riley found himself no longer afraid.

He raised his head and defiantly met the older man's gaze. "You act like you've never been hurt."

They stared at each other across the table for what felt like hours. For a moment, Riley thought he detected a faint wavering in Ben's eyes; it might've been the waves of heat still radiating from his mug. It might not have been. There was a question lurking in those eyes, but it wasn't _what hurt you?_ It was _do you want to talk about it? _And it was a difference that meant everything in the world.

Finally, his... friend... nodded. "You're not the first to ask that question, but you're the first to put it in those terms." He smiled and there was a hint of sadness to it. "For me it's not a matter of being hurt, not really. From that perspective, I guess you could call it immunity."

"Immunity?"

"I've been looking for this treasure... longer than you've been alive. My family's been searching for six generations, and been called a bunch of lunatics for it. We have no solid proof. We have a story, a scrap of paper, five words. The only thing I ever had going for me was my belief that somewhere, Charlotte was out there." A shrug. "Don't get me wrong, there are some things I hide. Like you're the only person that knows about the..." Wince. "...the alcohol. But there's something liberating about being told you're crazy all the time." Now his grin became joyful. "You're free to say what you think. Maybe you'll change someone's mind, maybe you're waxing poetic for no reason, but it's not like anyone's opinion of you will get much worse. So you go for it."

"Huh." That was all a little overwhelming, and Riley made a vague noise of acknowledgment while letting it sink in. Ben had one thing right, at least. The passion in his voice when he discussed the Templar treasure was more convincing than a hundred books of hard evidence could ever be. "I... uh."

"Just call it my version of your living in a van. It's how I roll."

Riley blinked. Somehow, when he put it _that_ way, it all made so much more sense.

--

Eventually, when the hot chocolate and coffee cake were gone, it had dawned on both of them that their clothes were still wet and maybe, just maybe, they should do something about that. When Ben got back into the main room from changing, he found that not only had Riley already finished getting into dry clothes, he'd fallen asleep on the couch. He'd been wondering about that. The kid told complained about waking up before noon, then showed up for a snowball fight at 9 in the morning?

Ben briefly considered waking him up, but then decided there wasn't much point in it. It was hard to blame him for being exhausted. Besides, he wouldn't mind some time to think, himself...

_Being open is acting like I've never been hurt, he says. But _I'm_ the one with a depressing outlook_.

He frowned and went back to his room, pulling the blanket off his bed and draping it over the slightly-shivering form on his couch. Riley mumbled something and buried his face in the cushions. He was kind of cute when he wasn't being a smartass, really... Ben snickered, imagining how his friend would react to being called 'cute', and decided to keep that thought to himself. After all, he did know when it was best to hide things.

Everything he'd told the young man was true. He'd spent most of his life wearing his heart on his sleeve, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. But there was something else, something he'd opted not to mention when his thanks had been so uncomfortably received. Something far more simple.

Riley was his _friend_. And to be honest, that was something different.

Even when he was young and hadn't had the Gates family madness hanging over his head, he'd never really kept any close friends. He'd been the one sitting in the back corner of the classroom, doodling pictures of knights and militiamen in his notebook, clever and quite likable if he could only be bothered to speak. But he couldn't, and nobody else tried to get him to open up—why should they?

He'd ended up with the occasional girlfriend, drawn by a fantasy of treasure hunting that had more to do with Long John Silver than John Adams. They never lasted. Then there were business acquaintances, Ian and his team being the latest. Ben genuinely liked Ian, but their partnership was simply that: a business partnership. They got together, did work, played poker, and went their separate ways.

And then, suddenly, there was Riley. Riley who'd shown him a restricted database just because he didn't like his boss. Riley who'd stormed into his house and whipped together a hangover cure for a stranger. Riley who had his own demons to wrestle with, yet had taken it upon himself to drive Ben's away despite that fact.

_Or maybe because of it_.

He hesitated and looked back at the sleeping tech. "Can it really be that simple?" _Did he have to save me to save himself?_

It was a question he knew he couldn't bring up. Not now. Not when Riley woke up. Perhaps not even any time before they found the _Charlotte_. But someday, he would ask that question. Someday, he knew they would reach that point.

He'd waited decades for a breakthrough in the search for the Templar treasure. He could wait for his friend to open up, no matter how long it would take.


	10. Levity

**Convergence  
**Chapter Nine: Levity

_A/N- For some reason, this chapter just didn't want to be written... on the bright side, the rest ought to come much more quickly. Here's hoping, anyway..._

* * *

His birthday was going to be a terrible day. Ben knew this for a fact. It had nothing to do with getting older, or not having any celebration. Or anything like that.

It was just that it was only January 7th. They couldn't go to Greenland yet.

There was little doubt in his mind that the next two months were going to be the longest of his life. The rush of the holiday season had tempered his restlessness for a bit, but now he had no more excuses. There was nothing left to work on, and Ian's crew was leaving for a weekend business trip anyway, so he settled down with a book and prepared to spend the first truly quiet day he'd had in some time. The jury was still out on whether that was a _good_ thing or not.

It didn't particularly help that his book had mentioned shipwrecks, the arctic, and the Founding Fathers all by chapter three. He scowled and tossed it onto his desk. "This is ridiculous."

He needed to _do_ something. Briefly, the thought of _go drink and be unconscious until the trip_ crossed his mind, but he noticed with interest that he didn't even take the idea seriously anymore. Maybe he'd go hunt down Riley's van—the kid's phone was apparently dead again—and drag him off to a movie. Preferably a nice movie set in a desert somewhere that had nothing to do with American history.

_No, when Riley hears _those_ conditions he'll send me to a hospital, not a movie theater. _Actually, now that he thought about it, being chained to a bed couldn't be that much worse than—

_Squeeek_.

He frowned as the door squealed open and instinctively backed into his own room. Had he left the door unlocked this morning? He couldn't remember.

"Ben?" a familiar accent called from the doorway.

"...Ian?"

"Ben! Happy birthday!" The blond man came around the corner, grinning broadly. Phil was trailing behind him, holding a box in one hand and what looked like lock picking tools in the other. He supposed that should make him feel appreciated. What it really made him was confused.

"Thanks, but.. aren't you supposed to be in Florida?"

"Oh, we don't have anything to do until tonight," he answered, waving that off. "You didn't think we'd completely miss your birthday, did you? We had to bring your present!"

As if on cue—which, Ben reminded himself, it probably had been—the door swung open and Shaw entered, with Viktor and Powell trailing behind him, carrying boxes. The latter two looked highly amused, though Shaw was wearing his usual deadpan expression. At least that was probably a good sign. Powell's box looked to be a cake, while Viktor's was wrapped in red, white, and blue paper. The bow even had a miniature American flag sticking out of it.

_He really went all out_. "Ian, you didn't need to do this."

"Of course I did!" A devilish smirk crossed his face. "Especially when I've got to repay you for my spectacular Christmas presents..."

_Oh. Uh oh_.

Powell walked past him, placing the cake on a table. "I'll get some plates, don't open your present without me!" He vanished before Ben could protest. He'd really hoped to go get the plates himself and take a minute to regain his composure, but no doubt Ian had—

An odd muffled sound, not entirely unlike a sneeze, distracted him, and Ian shot a sharp look in the direction of... the closet? Either Ben had misinterpreted or Ian quickly averted his gaze, because within a second or two the other man was looking squarely at Phil and asking if he needed a tissue.

"But no," Ben commented with his best attempt at sounding nonchalant, "you really didn't need to do this. _Really_." He was eying the package suspiciously now, trying to work out what could be inside. Far too large to be a pack of cards, though he wouldn't put it past Ian to track down some sort of giant novelty cards. But surely he'd be more creative than _that_.

Which was a disturbing thought.

"We had to get spice cake," Viktor was saying, "Phil hates chocolate, and Shaw hates everything else. So we compromised..."

"And by compromised you mean Ian picked it out," Ben finished, and the henchmen all nodded. Ian looked amused. "Hey, spice cake's fine with me. If you don't want it, I guess I'll just have to eat more." He saluted Powell, returning with a stack of plates, then turned his attention to the present. "But I'm sufficiently nervous about _this_."

"Oh, go on," Phil was grinning. "You'll love it!"

That didn't really make him feel any better, but he shrugged and began carefully peeling the wrapping paper off the package. Very carefully. So slowly and carefully, in fact, that anyone who didn't know better might have suspected he was stalling.

It turned out to be a video. Not a DVD, a _video: _Riley would've been mortified. If Ben were perfectly honest, that would've been enough of a gag gift as it was, but then he turned it over and noted the title.

_Schoolhouse Rock: America Rock!_

Ben stared at it for a long moment, then looked up and grinned. "Let me fix some coffee. And then we can all eat cake and watch this," he shook the tape, "wonderful example of American cinematography together."

Shaw elbowed Ian, hard. "We told you that would happen."

A muffled laugh that sounded like it came from somewhere behind Phil caught his attention for a moment, but then Powell was pressing a plate into his hand and he forgot about it. Probably just his imagination.

--

Ian never said anything about how long they'd _planned_ to stay, but the group seemed a little rushed as they ate their cake and headed out. Possibly the strains of "I'm Just A Bill" blaring through the apartment had something to do with that. Ben was not about to lose the war of the goofy presents, no matter how brilliant Ian's idea had been.

His first order of business after they left, of course, was turning that infernal noise off.

"Thank God... I mean, er..." He spun around at the muffled voice from the closet, which was definitely not his imagination this time. "Oh, what the heck. Hi Ben!"

_What the...?_

The closet door slid open and a dark-haired figure sauntered out. "...Riley? What in the world are you—"

"Happy birthday to you," Riley warbled before he could finish, "your house is a zoo, I've been in here all morning..." It seemed to be taking a supreme effort for the tech to keep himself from collapsing into hysterical giggles long enough to finish his song. "And you didn't have a clue!" He lost his battle for composure and flopped down on the couch.

Ben just gawked at him, utterly dumbfounded. "You... here... wh... how??"

"Goon Squad let me in. Otherwise I was planning to sneak in when you went down to get your newspaper... I probably owe Phil an apology, I was sitting there the whole time just waiting for him to give me away." He smirked, shrugged, then stuck his head back in the closet and pulled out a brightly wrapped package. "Anyway, I brought you a present."

Somehow, that worried him even more than Ian's similar statement had, and he decided maybe this would be a good time to try stalling again. "Can I ask _why_ you were hiding in the closet? You could've just come in with them and eaten cake like a normal person."

"Yeah, they suggested the same thing. But how boring." He wrinkled his nose. "Besides, spice cake? Really? That guy has _no_ taste. If I'd known they were bringing you _that_ junk I'd have picked up a cake myself... still might, for that matter..." He trailed off, frowning slightly. "Um, anyway, that's beside the point. Go on, open it!"

Ben frowned at the package, studying it. Riley's abilities with wrapping paper were sub-par, to put it lightly, and he seemed to have made up for it with copious amounts of duct tape. "Let me go find some scissors."

"No need." Riley reached into his pocket and produced a box cutter. The kid was really pretty clever. "Have at it."

"Do I have to?"

Riley snorted. "I have better taste in presents than Ian does, Ben. Promise."

"You know that doesn't take much."

He shrugged. "Good point."

Carefully, so as not to damage whatever was inside, Ben started slicing away at the duct tape. He noted a few exposed fragments of wrapping paper and concluded that the package was _actually_ wrapped in last Sunday's comics, for all that mattered now. "I think you missed a key concept of wrapping paper here. You're supposed to be able to see it." He lifted off a square of comics and duct tape, revealing the box beneath, and cocked his head. _Civilization 2?_ "Okay, so what's this supposed to be?"

Smirk. "The technical term is 'computer game,' but it's faster to just call it Civ 2. It's a bit out of date, there's no way your poor overworked computer would handle the newest one, but that's all right."

"I'll take your word for it, considering I don't know the first thing about computer games." That wasn't entirely true. Ben, like everyone else who'd ever tried to do productive work in Windows, was an expert at solitaire. But something told him Riley wouldn't consider that an argument in his favor.

"The first thing," his friend explained patiently, "is to take the disc out of the box, and put it in your computer."

Ben gave him a dirty look.

"Don't look at me like that! I worked in tech support, I take _nothing_ for granted."

Despite those doubts, he managed to get the game installed without any difficulty. In the meantime, Riley was trying to explain it to him, but all he was really getting was something about cities, something about research, and something about the AI being a backstabbing jerk.

"...attack your caravans when you're trying to trade with them, so don't even—"

"Riley."

"Yeah?"

"Could you either slow down and go over that all again while I've actually got the game running, or let me just read the instructions and try to sort it out myself?"

The young tech mumbled something that made it quite clear what he thought of reading the instructions, but reached into the box and handed him the manual anyway. "Sure. You read that, and in the meantime, I'll go get some real cake." He turned and headed for the door, grumbling. "Spice cake. Unbelievable."

Ben watched him leave, grinning, then turned his attention to the computer.

_This ought to be good_.

--

It took Riley roughly fifteen seconds to decide he should never be permitted anywhere near a pastry aisle. Ben did not need six birthday cakes. Furthermore, he didn't really want to have to carry six birthday cakes up the apartment stairs.

By the time he made a decision (if assorted cupcakes could really be called a decision) and tracked down some candles, he was actually surprised Ben hadn't tried to call him. Just to make sure he hadn't dropped dead or something. The lack of contact, Riley decided, meant his friend was completely hooked on his birthday present and losing track of time. It certainly did not mean he'd forgotten to turn his phone back on.

Though he had.

So when he dragged himself back into Ben's apartment, fully an hour and a half after leaving, he wasn't about to admit that he was surprised to see the older man hunched intently over his keyboard, eyes locked on the computer screen. "Riley?"

"How's it going?"

A pause. "Not bad, but I think there's something wrong with the game." He gestured to the monitor and Riley trotted over, cocked his head, and frowned.

"It looks fine to me..."

"Look at that!" Ben pointed to the small icon representing an armor unit. "That belongs to the _Sioux_. They're attacking me with _tanks_."

"Try playing on a lower difficulty level."

"I already lowered the difficulty level. There was something wrong with my first game too. I got wiped off the map by Gandhi."

"You know, you can't expect to ace the game from the begin... oh, wait." He hadn't said he'd been wiped out by the Indians, or even the purple team. No. By Gandhi. Belatedly, the problem Ben was having with the game started to sink in. Riley sighed. _How did I not see that coming?_ "Dude, it's a game. There's going to be a few discrepancies. Didn't anyone ever teach you about suspension of disbelief?"

Ben gave him a blank look.

"They can't make it a hundred percent accurate. If they do, it's not a game anymore, it's a movie, and I figured you've seen plenty of historical movies. So yeah. The Sioux will have tanks. Gandhi will annihilate you if you make him mad. Furthermore, the Japanese will threaten you with nuclear weapons and the French will occasionally win wars. You'll get over it."

There was a long silence as his friend considered this. "Sounds pretty iffy to me. Why doesn't it just call them the Blue Team and the Purple Team and the Orange Team then?" He paused and looked back at the monitor, then frowned and pressed a few keys, sending an aircraft tagged with the turquoise shield of the Americans to knock out the Sioux tank that had distressed him so much.

Riley mentally calculated how long he'd been gone and his eyes widened. _He's got stealth fighters already?_

"I don't see why it can't be more accurate," Ben mused, "but it _is_ kind of fun."

"That's the spirit." _What've I done?_

--

Whenever his phone woke him up, Riley went through a brief and irritable ritual. First he looked at the caller I.D. Then he looked at the clock. Then he muttered to himself about remembering to turn his phone off while he was asleep, turned it off, and threw it to the front of the van to deal with it later.

Few things could disrupt this pattern. Seeing Ben's number was one of them.

"Ben? Everything okay?"

"I launched a spaceship!"

Riley stared at the phone for a minute, trying to convince himself to regain consciousness a little faster. "Um... you... uh... congratulations? Did NASA offer to send you to Greenland early or something?"

There was a brief pause on the other end. "I woke you up, didn't I?"

"How could you tell?" Only then did Riley bother to look at the clock. Nine in the morning. If Ben hadn't _known_ he would be asleep at this time, he wasn't thinking. Then again, Ben wasn't known for his careful attention to the time anyway. "So let's hear about this spaceship."

"Is it normal to send it up in the 1600s? Because that's really a little odd..."

The good news was, that question told Riley exactly what the heck was going on. The bad news was... well... he looked at the clock again. It was still morning. "Ben, did you stay up all night playing that game?"

"No, no. I slept."

"Shame on you, but we'll make a real gamer of you yet. Try a higher difficulty level and get back to me."

That advice bought him four more hours of sleep before the phone rang again.

"What now?"

"I launched another spaceship."

"So try a higher difficulty level."

"There aren't any more."

That woke him up. "What do you mean there aren't any more? There's like seven!"

Ben sounded uncertain. "I know, but when you told me to play on a higher difficulty, I went up as high as I could."

_You've got to be kidding_. "Try bloodlust."

"What's that?"

"No spaceships. You have to destroy all the other civilizations to win."

There was a silence while Ben considered this, allowing Riley a moment to gather his thoughts as well. He'd _never_ beaten the game on Deity difficulty. To put it lightly, this was an embarrassing turn of events.

Finally, his friend came up with an answer to his suggestion. "Sounds kind of boring. And long. I'm already out of research targets; wouldn't conquering the world just involve a lot of fighting?"

"Yes on all counts."

"So why would I want to do it?"

"Because." A wicked grin spread across Riley's face. "It'll keep you busy until we leave for the Arctic." A hesitation. "Or, y'know, you seem to be pretty good at the game, so maybe only a week."

Ben laughed. "So Riley?"

"Yeah?"

"Does that mean I'm a real gamer now?"

He blinked. That was about the last question he'd ever expected Ben Gates to ask him. "Um... about that. You're well on your way, but you're gonna have to try a game that's less than eight years old before I go around throwing such prestigious titles on you."

"I'd tell you to bring it on, but I know you _would_, so let's just set that aside for now. Want to drop by for lunch? I've got cupcakes left."

--

Riley trotted into the apartment looking even more disheveled than usual, and Ben greeted him appropriately. "You're a mess."

"Thanks very much. If _someone_ weren't calling to tell me about his spaceships, interrupting my admittedly redundant beauty sleep..." As usual, the first thing he did after his greeting was flop onto the couch, squinting up at Ben through the dark hair hanging over his eyes. "I can't help it, there was no time to waste, you offered cupcakes."

"So I did." Retrieving the cupcake box—after all, he was a man of his word—Ben sat on the couch next to Riley and noticed that the tech had already cleared a spot on the table for their 'lunch'. He'd pushed a few research notes and a large book about the American Revolution to the floor, but the last book he'd held onto.

"What's this?"

The book in question was large and loosely bound, the front cover bearing an intricate and rather imposing diamond design, but a few corners of paper poking bravely out past the bindings gave it a less ominous character. Ben smiled fondly at it. "That would be the Gates family album." Riley looked at him uncomprehendingly, as he'd known would be the case. "Go on and look, if you want."

The young man seemed to immediately forget about the cupcakes, slowly opening the cover and examining the pages with something that could justifiably be called reverence. That was interesting; though considering Riley knew the story, he supposed the scrap of two hundred year old paper on the first page could be awe-inspiring.

_The secret lies with Charlotte_.

As Riley silently looked through the pictures and documents, Ben barely bit back the urge to ask if his family had kept anything similar. He knew the answer would be no, and he knew all too well that the question wouldn't be appreciated. But the reflex to make pleasant small talk in the silence died hard.

There was a pause in the page-turning. "Uh, Ben?"

"Yeah?"

"What's all this about?" He was pointing to an inscription in Ben's grandfather's cramped but elegant handwriting.

_Benjamin Franklin Gates, knighted 6 Nov. 1974._

Ben looked at it, eyed the odd expression on Riley's face, and laughed. "He'd just told me the story of the Templars, and I wanted to know if we were knights. So he knighted me."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously." He bowed with a flourish. "Sir Benjamin Gates, at your service, milady!" Riley gave him a murderous look. "I mean, um... never mind that last part."

"Yeah, you _better_ back off." Riley closed the book and sank back into the couch. "Unfair. You didn't tell me you were a _knight_. I wanna be a knight."

Chuckling, Ben decided to play along. "That can be arranged."

His friend's sapphire eyes flickered with uncertainty, then amusement. "Do I get a horse and armor?"

"No. The Templars had to make budget cuts awhile back. Nonetheless, get over here," he moved to an open patch of floor, "and kneel, and we'll see what we can do for you." He looked around the apartment for his coat, but couldn't find it in the clutter, so he settled for a dark quilt that'd been thrown over the back of the couch. "What's your middle name?"

Riley gave him a look.

"It's important. No knighthood without your full name."

For a moment his friend seemed to be reconsidering this whole knighthood thing, but then he shrugged. "Brendan."

"Alright then! Riley Brendan Poole," he draped the quilt over the young man's shoulders, "you hereby take upon yourself the duty of the Templars, the Freemasons, and..." He trailed off a moment. For obvious reasons, 'the family Gates' wasn't going to work as well in this situation as it had for him. "...the United States." If Riley noticed his hesitation, he said nothing. Either he was respecting the solemnity of the occasion, or he was busy snickering into his jacket. Whichever worked. "Do you so swear?"

"I so swear," Riley affirmed, in an enthusiastic tone void of any sarcasm.

_He sounds just like I did. _Ben grinned and removed the quilt, grabbing the tech's hand and pulling him to his feet. "Congratulations, Sir Riley. And that's the last time I'm going to call you that with a straight face."

"Probably just as well."

"Probably." He returned to the couch and held up a cupcake. "A toast, you think?"

"That's not toast. It's a cupcake."

Ben ignored him. "To knights, gamers, and two months left until Greenland. Cheers!"

Riley brandished a cupcake himself, but before they could actually attempt to toast each other with the pastries, their eyes met.

_This is absurd._

As if his thought were an unspoken cue, they both dissolved into laughter.


	11. Loyalty

**Convergence  
**Chapter Ten: Loyalty

_A/N- Some might call this slightly AU. I prefer to think of it as an expanded scene._

* * *

"Quiet, Riley! Your job's finished here."

_Rich people are jerks. _

The thought sprang into Riley's mind, completely uninvited, as he maintained a death grip on the ropes in the _Charlotte_'s cargo hold. Under any other circumstances, he'd have some snide comment to make about Ian saying "_I'll_ shoot your friend" and _Shaw_ holding the gun, but somehow he couldn't quite bring himself to make any wisecracks right now.

So having a gun pointed at you by someone you'd been working with for half a year was just a little sobering.

A sharp crack drew his attention, and Shaw's gun, back to Ben, who was now illuminated by a pinkish light. Riley did a double take, trying to convince himself that he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing. A flare. A very live flare. Burning. In the cargo hold. The cargo hold full of gunpowder.

_You've got to be kidding_.

"Look where you're standing." Ben's voice was perfectly calm, confident, maybe even a little stronger than usual. He might as well have been telling them about the historical pedigree of the wood. "All that gunpowder. You shoot me, I drop this, we all go up."

Riley did not relinquish his hold on the ropes. "Ben..." _You are _not_ doing anything to prove you're not crazy! _But he didn't say that, maybe because he couldn't see any other way to get out of this mess. If Ben actually thought this would work, he was game.

For a moment or two, the chances looked pretty good as Ian backed off, watching him nervously. Then his eyes narrowed. "What happens when the flare burns down?" For the first time, Ben's confident mask cracked, just a little, and the blond man pressed his advantage. "Tell me what I need to know, Ben."

"You need to know..." For a moment, Ben was silent. Only a moment. Then his eyes glinted and he looked past Ian to his henchman. "...if Shaw can catch!"

With that, he threw the flare.

Riley didn't see what happened next, because he was busy squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the earth-shattering kaboom. When it didn't come, after several very long seconds, he dared to open one eye, and immediately wished he hadn't. Apparently Shaw couldn't catch. Ian, however, could, and he was standing there holding the flare and grinning.

He gestured to Ben with the flaming tool, _because nothing can go wrong waving something that spits sparks around in a room full of gunpowder_, looking genuinely amused. "Nice try though." It sounded like he was going to continue, but right about then the flare decided it still wanted a say in the matter.

The next thing he knew, Ian's sleeve was on fire, and the flare had dropped to the floor. "ARGH!"

_I so called that_.

Riley took approximately half a second to congratulate himself for his prediction, then went into panic mode. The rapidly spreading fire was bad enough, and the fact that Shaw had gone into a panic mode which included bullets spraying everywhere didn't help. Nothing had exploded yet, so he figured the bullets were his biggest problem and dropped down behind a box.

"Get out, Shaw! Get out!"

Well, at least Ian had concern for his evil minions. The next thing Riley heard over the roar of the flames was the door to the cargo hold slamming shut and locking, which gave him a rather less warm and fuzzy feeling. Maybe a warm and toasty feeling.

In the meantime, Ben was stomping around the other side of the cargo hold. Before Riley could ask what in the world he was doing, he seemed to find what he was looking for, leaned down, and unearthed a snow-covered trapdoor.

"Riley, get over here!"

Well, it beat the alternative. He darted across the not-yet-burning areas of the hold and looked down at what Ben had dug up. "What is this?"

"Smuggler's hold. Get in!"

Privately he questioned the logic of going further into the burning ship, but it wasn't as if he had any better ideas. Which, he reminded himself as he clambered down into the narrow corridor below, had been about his reaction to the flare threat that had gotten them into this mess. Oh well. There was only one way to go, so he went, trying to ignore the flaming timbers raining down as they passed.

Neither said another word until reaching the end of the cramped space, a small compartment with a thick metal door. "Get down!" Ben ordered, pushing Riley to the ground as if he expected the young man not to obey on his own. He slammed the door shut and dove to the ground nearby.

Right about then came the earth-shattering kaboom.

--

_There's no way we're going to make it._

The explosion roared all around him, fire and sound and chaos, and all he could see was the darkness in front of him, face buried in the snow. A splitting headache came on the heals of the noise, threatening to shatter his mind with its intensity. He was dying. He knew he was dying. For a moment, he wondered if he would see Tristan again, and reflexively locked up at the thought—which was probably all that kept him from screaming.

Then as suddenly as it had begun, it was silent, and he felt a blast of frigid air coming at him from above. Turning over, he saw sunlight. A bit further, and there was Ben, stirring beside him.

_...Are we dead? He doesn't look like a zombie. I don't _feel_ like a zombie. Lemme try this... braiiiinsss, braiiiinsss... no, that doesn't seem right at all. Must be alive, then._

Riley couldn't help it. He burst into near-hysterical giggles, then almost immediately lapsed into coughs in the ash-filled air.

The two quietly extracted themselves from the wreckage, checking briefly for any injuries, then Ben glanced back at him. "There's an Inuit village about nine miles east of here. It's popular with bush pilots."

"Great." A nine mile hike in the snow, after a ship had exploded around them. _No problem_. Riley paused for a moment and just watched the older man pick his way through the remains of the Charlotte. He didn't seem too bothered by the fact that they'd nearly gone up in flames. Matter of fact, he seemed perfectly calm.

_You'd think he did this every day_.

Well, Ben might not be concerned by what had just happened—or why—but Riley was rapidly recovering from one shock and focusing on another.

Trust was not something he gave out lightly, of course, and if he'd been asked point-blank if he trusted Ian he'd likely have said no. But there was trust, and there was 'assuming your business associate isn't going to try to kill you,' and he'd at least given the guy that second courtesy. He sighed. _That'll teach me_.

Of course, there were other reasons to be worried than the close encounter with certain doom. If Ben wasn't worried about the Charlotte, he wouldn't be either, but _some_ things would have to be addressed. "What're we gonna do now?"

"Start making our way home."

"No, I mean about Ian." Riley stumbled as he made his way out of the wreckage. "He's gonna steal the Declaration of Independence, Ben."

Ben stopped and gave him a puzzled look. "Wait. What do you mean, what are _we_ going to do about it?"

"You did say you weren't going to let him."

"I'm not."

"Well then." He lost his footing in the snow and was silent for a few moments as he regained his balance. "That brings us back to, what're we gonna do?"

"Riley, _we_ aren't going to do anything. Don't you realize how dangerous—"

"Yeah, actually, I think I do." Riley shot a pointed look at the wreckage around them. "Which is why there's no way I'm letting you do it on your own. So what's the plan?"

The older man remained silent, still watching him as if something about his statement was hard to understand. "Riley." He recognized that tone. "Its not that I don't appreciate the sentiment—I mean, I really do—but I can't just let you jump into this. He tried to kill you! I started this hunt knowing it was a risk, that I'd probably throw my whole life into it. I'm okay with that. But there's no reason you need to do the same thing."

_You have no idea_. "I'm not sure if you noticed, you do realize _you're_ the one that just blew up the ship, right?" Riley crossed his arms. "You'd already convinced Ian not to shoot you. You were going to be fine, so you just decided maybe you ought to blow the place sky high for fun? Come on."

"Yes, and things like that are precisely why you—"

"—will not be leaving you alone to get yourself killed doing something crazy."

--

The icy air on the outside didn't even begin to compare to the chill running up Ben's spine. He liked the kid, and furthermore, he owed him a great deal. No way could he let the one person who seemed to still _like_ him put his life on the line for this.

There was just one problem. He hadn't realized it at the time, but Riley was exactly right. He questioned the idea that he would be 'fine' just because Shaw wouldn't shoot him right then and there, but the point was still valid. With Ian threatening _his_ life, well, that was worrying. He'd made jokes about poker. When the threat turned to his friend, things were suddenly desperate and it was time for mutually assured destruction.

Interesting, that.

"Crazy huh?"

"Yeah. I take back anything I've ever said about you not being crazy. You're a complete lunatic, Ben Gates." His eyes blazed fiercely, twin sapphire flames in the harsh Arctic sunlight. "And wherever you're going, I'm going."

This time when he shivered, it wasn't from the cold. He met Riley's gaze evenly, by now used to the way the young man's eyes could harden in an instant, knowing what to expect. But what he saw wasn't anger at being left out. Determination, and maybe desperation, but not anger.

_Does he have anywhere else to go?_

As soon as that thought occurred to him, he knew the answer was no, but he also knew it was irrelevant. He understood. The kid wasn't going to abandon him, because it was no longer about a treasure hunt. It had never been about a treasure hunt. First it had been about distraction. It wasn't that anymore, either.

Riley was no longer in this thing just to run from whatever he'd left behind him in Colorado. He knew it; they both knew it. They'd come too far, and in the process, become too close.

Ben found himself nodding slowly, then looked back at the smoldering ruins of the Charlotte. "You're sure about that?"

"I'm sure."

There was no arguing this any further... and, to be perfectly honest with himself, he didn't want to. Until now, he'd never really thought about what it meant for someone to believe in him. So few ever had.

"_We_ it is, then."

Riley nodded. "So what do we do?"

"We stop him."


	12. Trust

**Convergence  
Chapter Eleven: Trust**

_A/N- Yay! I got an excuse to put in my favorite deleted scene! That's exciting. Or maybe I'm just easily amused. In any case, thanks much to everyone who's reviewed (as always), and enjoy!_

_

* * *

_

_There it is. So close..._

Ben closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't really need to see the document, he knew the words by heart. But suddenly it wasn't the words that he needed.

So close, and yet...

It had all gone wrong so _quickly_. Less than a week ago, they'd been on a plane to Greenland, all cheerful and excited about finding the Charlotte and its secrets. They had definitely not anticipated that they would end up wandering around Washington DC, looking for someone who would believe that the Declaration of Independence was in danger.

Yet it was. And it was as he'd just explained to Riley. _Those with the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action_. If the FBI and Homeland Security weren't going to do it, then there was only one other option to keep the Declaration out of Ian's hands. The Declaration, and the treasure it would lead to.

"I'm gonna steal it."

His friend laughed, then gave him an uneasy glance. "What?"

"I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence." He turned and started to walk out, not quite able to stand it there anymore. The building suddenly seemed suffocating. Besides, he knew what he had to do, there was no sense standing around staring at the document any longer. No time to waste.

Briefly, his mind flashed back to the invitation he'd seen in Dr. Chase's office. The upcoming gala would be the perfect chance, if only he could work out a plan in time. And he would. Because he had to.

He heard Riley behind him, just now recovering. "Uh, Ben?" Wordlessly he motioned for the kid to follow, and slowed a bit to let him catch up. Already his mind was going over the various protests his friend could put up against this course of action, preparing a counterpoint to each of them. Although...

"You don't have to get tangled up in this if you don't want, remember."

"Meh." Riley shrugged. "I think I'd better. Just imagine the trouble you'll get into if I'm _not_ around."

Ben laughed, though all things considered, it might not entirely have been a joke.

"So..." _Here it comes_. Ben braced himself to defend his decision, and was thus shocked to hear, "Want to do some sightseeing?"

"...What?"

"Do you," Riley pointed to him, "want to do some sightseeing?" He gestured widely, then formed his hands into two O's and mimed using binoculars.

Smirk. "No, no, I got that. I'm just trying to figure out where it came from. You're not exactly a tourist, you know." Actually he had a good idea of why this had come up, and he didn't particularly want to take the time. Nonetheless, he turned and started heading west.

They were silent for awhile, then Riley spoke up. "You're right."

"Pardon?"

"That I'm not a tourist. Never was. You probably think I'm stalling—"

"Well, yes."

"—but I've really just never taken the time to look around." He shrugged. "Always had other things on my mind."

Ben wasn't too sure he believed that story. That Riley had other things on his mind than sightseeing was perfectly believable. It was more that the kid wasn't exactly a shining beacon of historical curiosity. Ever. "So what brought it up now?"

"We're here?"

"That's as good an answer as any." Which was distinctly different from being a good answer.

With that, it became quiet again, and out of the corner of his eye Ben noticed that his friend didn't appear to be looking around at all. _Yeah, definitely stalling_. He remained silent and lost in thought during the entire trek to the end of the Mall, where Ben's personal favorite tourist destination, the Lincoln Memorial, stood.

He stopped, then grabbed Riley's arm before he ran into something, since he apparently hadn't noticed. "We're here."

"Huh?"

Ben rolled his eyes and pointed to the monument. "That's a sight."

"Oh. Yeah." Obediently, the kid followed him in and looked up at the statue of Lincoln. "Something else."

"Your appreciation is less than convincing." He put his hands in his pockets and gazed up at the statue himself. Of all the men who had served the United States as President, Lincoln was undoubtedly the one he admired most. There were many reasons for that, of course. But for the moment... "What everyone wants to remember about Lincoln is that he freed the slaves. It's a classic problem. You can have a crowning achievement, but it's all anyone will remember."

"That doesn't sound like a bad problem to have," Riley observed.

"Maybe not." Ben shrugged. "During the war, he wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, and told him that if he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, he would do it." He glanced at his friend to be sure he was still listening. "But he also said that if he could save the Union without freeing any slaves, he would do that, or if he could save it by only freeing some, he would do _that_. Lincoln didn't enter the White House planning to be the man who ended slavery. All he intended was to be the man who preserved this nation, and to accomplish that..." Another shrug. "He did what had to be done."

Riley gave him an amused look. "Do you want to go steal the Emancipation Proclamation as a warm up?" Well, he'd gotten the point, at least. He turned and headed out, with Ben trailing behind. "You're dead set on this, then."

"Pretty much."

"Great." He sat on the steps leading to the memorial and shook his head. "This is... huge. _Prison_ huge." Pause, then he squinted up at Ben. "You _are_ gonna go to prison, you know that."

"Yeah, probably." The thought hadn't really occurred to him as anything more than an argument Riley could make to try to talk him out of the theft. He was going to try to keep it that way as long as possible.

In any case, his nonchalant tone had the kid fooled. "That's something that would bother most people."

_Yeah, well..._ "Look." He decided to go over his reasoning; the kid deserved that much. "Ian's gonna try to steal it. And if he succeeds, he'll destroy the Declaration." There was no doubt in his mind on that point—the document was very old, very delicate, and he doubted Ian would treat it with any respect beyond keeping the map intact. "I don't think there's a choice."

He sat on the stairs, only to have Riley get up and pace in front of him. "Ben, for God's sake... it's like stealing a national monument. It's like stealing him!" He gestured to the statue of Lincoln. "It can't be done! Not it _shouldn't_ be done, it _can't_ be done." He seemed to be struggling for a minute to explain exactly why it couldn't be done, then made his decision. "Let me prove it to you." He stepped backwards, barely kept himself from falling down the stairs, and started heading east, glancing back at Ben to be sure he was following.

Ben followed. This he wanted to see.

--

_Preservation room. Right. Should've known he'd have an answer_.

Possible or not, Riley had his opinions on hatching a plot to steal the Declaration of Independence. None of them got any more optimistic when he considered the fact that they were hatching said plot... in the Library of Congress. Because nothing could go wrong there. Not like they were near the scene of the crime or anything.

Yet for three days, there they were, studying every detail of the National Archives building until Riley was pretty sure the floor plan was burned into his brain. He could've navigated the place with his eyes closed. Hopefully it wasn't going to come to that, but, it was good to know.

The plan was actually good so far, if everything went perfectly. Which meant, well, they were doomed.

Ben was shuffling through papers, shaking his head. "I just don't see it."

"See what?"

"How to get around the security cameras. We can get _in_ just fine, it's getting out that I'm worried about. Though..." He lapsed into thoughtful silence again, apparently forgetting Riley was there, then abruptly declared, "No, scratch that. Even going in they'll get video."

"Wait,_ what?" _Admittedly, Riley hadn't heard Ben say anything about the cameras yet. But considering the older man had come up with ways around every other security feature in the building so far, he'd just assumed that little mundane detail was taken care of. "We haven't even thought about the cameras?"

"Nope, not really. But there's got to be some way around it." He shrugged and stuck his nose back in the book, as if they had all the time in the world to find an answer. "Maybe a diversion. The guards will already be distracted by the gala, if anything goes wrong, they'll pounce... but that could get messy... rather not risk it..."

Riley stared at him for a long time, but Ben's gaze was firmly locked on the information in front of him, as though it were "Priceless Artifact Theft for Dummies" and if he just looked hard enough, the answer would pop out at him. Okay, so the answer to the other problems _did_ seem to have come to him about like that, but still. Quietly, he reached over and tugged the wiring plans out from under what Ben was reading.

This he could do. This was his element. _This might be... if I can just get in..._ he frowned, double checking what he thought he was seeing, and nodded. _That'll do_.

For a moment, he kept silent. He'd never actually explained to the older man that tech support had not been his _real_ job when they'd met, and he was in fact one of the area's more proficient hackers. As a matter of survival, he'd guarded that identity quite jealously. Not even the people he'd done work for knew his real name or, in most cases, even what he looked like.

Needless to say, he hadn't seen any good reason to risk mentioning that detail. Until now. And if he kept his mouth shut, maybe Ben would fail to find a way to deal with the cameras and give up on this absurd idea. Or... probably not.

_Here goes nothing._

"Okay, got it. Look at this." He pushed the plans under Ben's nose when his friend made no move to look, and earned a curious glance in response. "That's our way in."

"The subway."

"Uh-huh. There's a bunch of cables that go through there from the Archives building." He pointed them out, though Ben was looking at him rather than the paper. "Get at those—looks like there's pretty easy maintenance access—and we can get into their network. Then all you have to do is record some video when nothing's going on, and replay it later."

Ben was shaking his head. "It's not that simple. You of all people should know that. Just because you're in the network doesn't mean you can start playing with their security programs."

"Yes it does."

"What do you mean yes it does? Recording's one thing, but to replace the real feed we'd need someone who knows—"

"—How to hack?" Riley finished helpfully.

"Yeah, that. And we don't h..." For all his intelligence, Ben could be really slow on the draw sometimes, the young tech mused as he watched comprehension dawn. "Wait. You don't mean...?"

"Not to pull an Ian on you or anything, but I _do_ also know a little something about," he coughed and put on his best British accent, "questionable legality. Course," he grinned and returned to his normal voice, "I go for binary rather than bullets."

They stared at each other for a minute. "Riley, just so I'm clear on this. You're telling me that you can hack into the National Archives security network and cover their camera feed while I'm in there."

"Yep. No problem."

Ben kept staring. His expression, though, was less _oh god he's a criminal_ and more _my prayers are answered_, which Riley was taking as a good sign. "You never told me you could do that sort of thing!"

"Of course I didn't! It's illegal, do you expect me to shout it from the rooftops?" He arched an eyebrow. "I'm a hacker, not an idiot. And not a half bad hacker if I do say so myself. Actually, I'm sure my old boss would tell you I'm not a half bad idiot, either." Shrug. "Anyway, I can do it, but it means I'll have to stay on the outside. Might be better that way anyway." To say he hadn't been excited about going to some stuffy party, just to try to get arrested, was a terrible understatement.

"Right. Much easier if only one of us has to get in. But then how do we stay in contact?"

"I'm sure we can find a way." Riley mentally cycled through his technological stockpile. "Matter of fact, I've got just the thing..."

--

"We're not ready. We can do this... tomorrow, or next week, y'know? I'm free next year, most of the year..."

"We're going tonight." Ben didn't miss a beat as he went over his final equipment check. "The gala serves as our distraction, it's our best chance." Blacklight, good. Drill, good. Riley politely waited for the latter tool to stop making noise before answering.

"Best chance to get caught. More people means more people that can spot you."

"It also means it's easier to blend in." He was about to tell the kid to relax when a burst of static sounded in his ear. He cocked his head. "Hello?" No answer. Frowning, he pushed away from his desk and moved to the window, adjusting the tiny earpiece as he went, then stuck his head outside. Riley's van—now the command center for the theft of the Declaration—was sitting there, with the tech inside watching him. "Did you hear me?"

Riley raised a hand out the window. "Got it." He sounded tired. He probably was; he'd been alternately working and panicking all week.

"Alright, good. We should be able to communicate then."

"Right. What's next?"

"There is no next. The checklist has been checked." His friend slumped as if that was the last thing he'd wanted to hear. "We're ready."

Riley shook his head and clambered out of the vehicle. "Alright, you know what... I'm gonna come back up, and we're gonna go over everything step by step, one last time."

Ben laughed, half incredulous, half sympathetic. Over the last week they'd gone through every step of the plan with a fine-tooth comb, and it seemed like each review made the kid _more_ worried, not less. He'd tried everything he could to convince him to relax, and had no luck. _Maybe I'm just going about __it the wrong way_. "Riley."

"Yeah?"

"Allow me to tell you a story about the military genius Hannibal, who spent three years in Italy preparing for his attack against Rome. He planned everything perfectly, he left nothing to chance, and guess what happened."

Shrug. "What?"

"His troops were slaughtered, and he committed suicide." That wasn't quite the whole story, but it was generally best to keep things short and to the point.

Riley hesitated, briefly at a loss for words. "Okay, thanks for that... that's good."

Ben nodded, trying to project confidence. Though he'd been trying that for awhile now, and it didn't seem to have rubbed off yet. "It's on."

Despite that, the kid moved forward to the apartment entrance rather than back to his van. _I don't know what else to tell him_. _This is the only way. He knows that_. It wasn't that he could blame him for being nervous, of course. But it wasn't very productive, and had to be hell on the poor kid.

The door swung open and Riley took a step in, just far enough to close the door behind him. "Ben..."

"Riley?"

They stared at each other. Riley's eyes were shockingly blue, seeming almost luminous in the apartment's dim light, filled with a hundred conflicting emotions. Ben tried to counter it with his own calm._ It's going to be okay._ Their eyes locked; worry and confidence, sapphire and smoke, battling for the greatest intensity.

After several very long minutes, Riley nodded once. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. And then, just as abruptly as he'd entered, he was gone.

Ben put the blacklight and drill in a pack filled with other random tools, the finishing touch on the disguise that would—hopefully—get him into the archives building without suspicion. Then he stopped and looked back up at the door. He hadn't expected Riley to have come back, yet for some reason he was slightly disappointed to see the empty doorway.

"It'll be fine," he murmured to the young hacker's phantom presence. His own doubts were still there, but they'd faded in the focus on their task. Their _mission_. But there was something else contributing to his confidence, and he smiled as he turned his attention back to his preparations. "It'll be fine, because I refuse to fail. And if I try to change my mind about _that_, you won't let me."


	13. Vigilance

**Convergence****  
Chapter Twelve: Vigilance**

**

* * *

**

It was a beautiful day in Philadelphia. Comfortably warm, with the wind carrying a hint of springtime chill. The sun was shining, birds sang merrily from trees and rooftops. There were only a few clouds in the sky; delicate wisps of white trailing through purest blue, a perfect backdrop for those few avians who halted in their songs to flutter about the city.

Amidst all this, a young man in a dark sweatshirt sat on a park bench, resting his chin in his hands, contemplating the truths of life. And right now the primary truth on Riley's mind was that it really never took very long for the world to go to hell.

Pacing around the bench, looking thoughtful, was the Mean Declaration Lady. He was trying to get used to calling her Abigail, but somehow the nickname just wouldn't get out of his head. Oh well. It didn't really matter what he called her anyway. He had been instructed to take care of her. This he had done, to the exclusion of all else... including protecting the document they'd risked so much to steal.

He sighed. True, he'd been following Ben's instructions, and he wasn't sure what else he could've done regardless. That didn't stop him from feeling horribly guilty.

Not to mention vaguely irritated. If they had to split up, why did he get stuck with Abigail? Couldn't he have gone with Ben? No, that left Abigail alone with either the Declaration or the glasses, forget it. But he could've gone alone. He was very good at ducking unwanted attention. Let the two history freaks go together.

...Or actually, on second thought, it might be better that they hadn't. He sighed. Maybe this was the least-bad way of doing things after all. But the fact remained, it had all blown up horribly.

_So now what?_

Well, the FBI had Ben. That was problem one. Ian had the Declaration; that was problem two. So all they had to do was spring Ben from the feds, steal back the Declaration, and get back to the business of following obscure clues left by a bunch of old dead guys. While ducking more feds and Ian's goons. Yeah... that wasn't asking much at all.

There had to be a way, though. If he'd learned anything from Ben, it was that there was always a way. The problem was, it took someone as crazy as Ben to find it. That complicated matters.

Abigail stopped pacing, somewhere behind him. "Riley?" He didn't acknowledge her, but she didn't really wait for him to do so either. "Do you know how to get in touch with Ian?"

He took a moment to replay that in his head, making sure he'd heard correctly. Yes, he'd definitely heard her asking about getting in touch with Ian. So no, he had definitely not heard her correctly... he looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Ben said you two used to work with him. Surely you've got a phone number or something..."

Okay, so maybe his ears weren't playing tricks on him after all. But here he'd thought the woman was intelligent. "Maybe, maybe not. I've tried to forget we ever worked with him."

She cocked her head. "Okay, but I want to talk to him. Maybe he can help us."

Well. _That_ was interesting. Perhaps Ben hadn't told her all the details of their 'working relationship' with tall, blond, and psycho. Still, the Goon Squad had tried to shoot _her_, too, which seemed to him like it should've been a terrible first impression. "I don't really think that's a good idea. Getting his attention right now would be a great way of getting shot."

"He didn't shoot us after he picked up the Declaration..."

He opened his mouth to tell her that was irrelevant, then reconsidered. She actually had a point—he'd been wondering about that himself. But he shrugged. "If I were a criminal mastermind, I'd try to avoid shooting people in the middle of crowded streets too. He had what he wanted." He arched an eyebrow. "What in the world do you want his help for, anyway?"

"Well, as you put it, he's a criminal mastermind." She leaned over the bench. "Who better to get someone out of the FBI's hands?"

Riley blinked, again wondering if he'd heard correctly. _Interesting concept_. "You know, hanging around with us has been a terrible influence on you. Just saying."

She laughed, then quickly became serious again. "He has the Declaration, but it's no good to him without those glasses Ben has. If we tell him that, he'll have no choice but to help us. I don't think there's any other option at this point... cutting some kind of deal is the only way we'll get the Declaration back."

Blue eyes narrowed, just slightly. "The Declaration," he repeated. Anyone who knew Riley well—so, basically, Ben—would have recognized his tone as rather dangerous.

Abigail was perceptive; perhaps she caught it. Or maybe she just realized what she'd said. Either way she backed off. "Well even if we manage to get Ben out on our own, we'd have to find a way to recover the Declaration also. May as well do both at once."

"Uh huh." _Or maybe you'll just take the Declaration and run, since that's the only reason you're tagging along with us, isn't it?_ After all, she'd tried once already. Never mind all the ways Ian could find to make things go wrong; he wasn't entirely sure Abigail would keep _her_ word either. Sure, Ben trusted her, which was a point in her favor...

Then again, he'd trusted Ian until boats started blowing up around them. For that matter, he'd trusted _Riley _without any apparent second thoughts, within a day of meeting him. Maybe Ben was just a little too trusting.

But one thing was for sure. They'd come this far, and if the search got derailed now, it was not going to be pretty. He'd seen how Ben 'handled' minor setbacks, and while he was pretty sure he'd talked his friend out of that... _This time, there's not going to be another chance._

Making things much more difficult was Ben's order to take care of Abigail. Assuming her plan to contact Ian was innocent, letting her get mixed up with _that_ group didn't seem to be fulfilling his instructions at all. Then again, if she were planning to backstab them, Ben would surely understand if he gave up on it... ugh. His head was starting to hurt.

Abigail's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Well?"

_Well what? Let's find out. _Alone with this near-stranger, he found himself slipping back into old survival instincts. Defense was important, and sometimes the best defense was a good offense.

Ben wouldn't have recognized him.

Ben wasn't here.

He leaned over the back of the bench and looked up at her. "You know, we've spent most of the time since you joined up running around in terror, we haven't really had a chance for formal introductions. This seems like an excellent time to get that out of the way." He speared her with the best dark look he could produce upside-down. "My name's Riley. I'm Ben's partner in crime. And I really could not care less about some old piece of paper with probably a few million replicas floating around the country."

She looked shocked. "It is _not_ just a piece of—"

"Yes, it is. It's a piece of paper with a lot of very important words on it, important enough that you can go into any library and look them up." He crossed his arms. "Don't get me wrong; I want it back. For two reasons. One, there's a treasure map on it. Two, Ben wants to keep it safe. But I strongly suggest you don't try to put me in a position where I'm choosing between Ben or the Declaration."

As best he could tell from his awkward vantage point, Abigail couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or insulted. "That is not what I'm suggesting at _all_, Riley."

Perhaps it hadn't been. But he couldn't bring himself to be all that concerned if he had offended her, under the circumstances. "Good to hear."

She was giving him an odd look now, as though seeing him for the first time. He seemed to get that a lot. "How in the world did you and Ben end up working together, anyway?" she inquired finally—apparently his opinion of the Declaration was still bothering her. "I mean, he's so well-versed in history and you're..."

"Not interested."

"Yes, that."

"Hm." Yeah, like he was really going to answer that question. Way too complicated. Besides, there were definitely elements of it that he didn't want her to hear, and probably other elements that Ben wouldn't want her to hear. "That's a long story we probably don't have time for." Cutting off her next question, he made his decision and tossed his cell phone at her. "You're making the call. It's your brilliant idea, and I have _nothing_ to say to that guy."

Abigail glanced from the phone to its owner, a quizzical expression on her face. "Then you'll go along with this?"

"I don't have any other ideas. But," he gave her a sharp look, "Ian's the bad guy, and we're working with him to get _Ben_ back. Try to remember that."

"Right." She looked at the phone but didn't make any move to start dialing. "You make it sound like there should be an _or else_ at the end of that statement."

He raised an eyebrow. "And if there should?"

"Curiosity demands that, despite having no plans to work with Ian for real, I ask _or else_ what."

Riley considered this. He was generally pretty adamant about not using his powers for evil, but 'evil' was getting pretty flexible in his mind. Theft and threats had their moments. His icy expression didn't waver as they stared at each other. "You'll find out how quickly a good hacker can ruin your life." His tone was light. "Any other questions?"

It looked like she had a lot of other questions, in fact, but then she backed off a step and shook her head. "What's the number?"

--

_Yeah, I know about the glasses._

Ben kept hearing that statement, over and over in his head, as he made some attempt to get to sleep on the short flight from Philadelphia to New York. Ian knew about the glasses. Well, yes, he'd assumed that when the other man told him to _bring_ the glasses. The question he hadn't bothered to explain was how?

_Dr. Chase._

He'd believed Abigail when she said she wasn't going anywhere. Matter of fact, he still believed that when she'd said that, she had no intention of going anywhere. The problem was that circumstances had changed since then. If Ian had the Declaration now, would she have changed her mind? She didn't really strike him as the mercenary type... but then, she'd originally joined up with him and Riley because she refused to let the document out of her sight.

An entirely admirable goal, of course, but one that might cause him a fair bit of trouble now.

_How would she have contacted Ian? Riley? _

Possibly. Riley couldn't stand Ian, of course; he took attempted murder fairly personally. That probably wouldn't prevent him from remembering his contact information if asked. The question then became, would he actually give it to her? And the only answer Ben could entertain was absolutely not.

After all, that was why he'd sent them out together, while he went on alone. No doubt he would be Ian's primary target... neither of them would be at all safe with him. But that was okay. He trusted Riley to protect Abigail—and to keep an eye on her if she started to have second thoughts about not going anywhere. Sure, he'd believed her, but an abundance of caution couldn't _hurt_.

The fact remained, Abigail couldn't have contacted Ian without Riley's cooperation. That threw a decent-sized wrench into the theory that she had switched sides. Of course, it was possible Riley had gone over too...

No, no it wasn't. Scratch that. Stupid thought.

So then what _had_ happened? Had Ian caught them? He'd seen them, Riley guiding Abigail away from the car while he was being arrested, well after the Declaration had been lost. So if Ian had captured them, he'd gone out of his way to do so, and somehow Ben doubted that. Not when he had the Declaration, and no way of knowing he needed anything else.

_Ugh_. He shifted in his seat. They'd been kind enough to take the handcuffs off, apparently figuring there was nowhere for him to go until they landed, but that didn't make the seat itself any more comfortable. Actually he'd have preferred to be cuffed. That way he would at least have an excuse. _I suppose I'll find out tomorrow_. Still, the question was gnawing at his mind and being annoyingly persistent about it.

He tried to redirect his thoughts. Regardless of how Ian had learned about the glasses, he'd picked a very odd meeting spot. An aircraft carrier, seriously? And he wasn't stupid. No matter what threats he made, if he really expected the FBI to send Ben in alone, he'd lost all contact with reality at some point. Unlikely. But if he just wanted to keep them at a distance, in order to do... what? What did he hope to accomplish? Ben couldn't imagine.

Then there was the other detail. Odd as it might be to meet aboard the _Intrepid_, it was in New York. Hardly a convenient spot for either of them. Which meant not only did Ian know about the glasses, he knew the next clue. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

Probably not.

Sighing, he attempted to settle himself in the seat again. All he could really do was wait and see... and hope it wouldn't get him or his friends killed. Right now, he wasn't sure he liked his odds.


	14. Affection

**Convergence  
Chapter 13: Affection**

* * *

There had only been room for one extra passenger aboard the FBI helicopter, and naturally Ben had been the one to go. Riley was fine with that; spending the ride from New York to Boston in the company of a bunch of feds wasn't his idea of a fun trip. Besides, he didn't ever want to see Ian again. Not even to laugh at him getting arrested.

No, being left behind wasn't what bothered him. Being left behind _with the others _was what bothered him. _With the others_ presently entailed standing on a balcony at the New York field office, watching the traffic below, with Abigail Chase standing not three feet away from him. It was the first time they'd been alone together without matters of life and death to distract them since Riley had threatened her.

Riley wasn't entirely sure he liked Ben's father much, either, but at least when Patrick had been there he and Abigail had made some small talk; it filled the emptiness, even if it was boring to listen to. Now Patrick was being debriefed by the feds, and the silence was... well, uncomfortable might be too strong a word. Uneasy would cover it just fine.

He leaned over the railing and sighed. May as well try to improve things. "It was never anything personal, you know."

"Is that an apology?" She sounded genuinely curious, not sarcastic, so he wasn't overly tempted to throw anything at her. Just as well; he didn't really have anything to throw but his cell phone, and that wouldn't be worth it.

"In a sense." His gaze remained firmly locked on the street. "I'm not sorry I was suspicious, and I'm not sorry I was keeping an eye on you. _Someone_ had to. You might've noticed that Ben doesn't really look out for himself."

Abigail giggled. Wait... she giggled? She actually giggled? _Learn something new every day_. "That fact wasn't lost on me, true."

"Well, there you go. It's not an apology. But," he turned and saluted her with the phone, "I'm acknowledging that you turned out all right."

"I see." She moved forward and sat on the railing. "I turned out all right. That's a high complement from you, isn't it?"

Well. She _was_ perceptive. He frowned and returned his attention to the passing cars, resolving to ignore the question. Not that she'd stumbled upon some deep dark secret, or anything. Yet the thought of actually answering a question still froze him up inside; a cold very different than the dread of impending death he'd spent the last few days with, and in some ways worse.

_Cut that out. She's all right_.

_Cut it out!_

It took a nearly physical act of will to shake off the barrier that had come over him, but Riley forced himself. She _was_ all right. And he'd certainly have to get used to her eventually... after all, he'd seen Ben kiss her.

He looked back at her and nodded. "Yeah, it is."

With that, they were quiet again, the silence much less awkward this time. A McDonald's truck rolled along below, and it suddenly dawned on him that he hadn't eaten since they'd reached Philadelphia, nearly two days ago. _Oh ugh_. He'd been too busy to be hungry before, but now...

Surely the FBI had a kitchen or something around here. He wasn't about to go looking around—the feds were the good guys now, he got that, but still. A cop was a cop. Maybe Abigail would go, she hadn't eaten either. He turned his head to ask her about it, and hesitated. She was giving him a rather odd look.

_Probably doesn't mean she's thinking about dinner_. "Problem?"

"Does Ben know?"

That told him nothing whatsoever. "Ben knows quite a lot of things, and believe me, he'll happily tell you all of them if you ask. Could you be a little more specific?"

Now she looked exasperated. Then briefly, if he wasn't much mistaken, a flash of nervousness crossed her face. First giggling, then nervous... Riley was about to ask who she was and what she'd done with Abigail when she answered. "I _mean_, does he know that you love him."

He somehow managed not to drop his phone off the balcony.

_Be an odd thing for him to know, wouldn't it? Considering..._ he tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. "Well, if he does know that, I hope he's planning to let me in on the secret sometime soon."

Discomfort turned to pure mortification, and lasted approximately two seconds before Abigail regained her composure. Excellent. He'd actually seen her flustered, his life was complete. "You mean you don't?" she asked, sounding for all the world as if she hadn't even considered that option.

"Not last time I checked. Here, give me a minute... hey self? Are you in love with a dude?" He tilted his head for a moment, waiting for an answer. None came, of course; he'd be more than a little worried if one had. And would most assuredly not admit it. But for his audience's sake, he supplied one anyway. "No, self, definitely not." He straightened up and gave Abigail a helpless shrug. "Sorry. Awkward."

"Yeah." She nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "Awkward."

The following silence could've been awkward, also, but somehow Riley wasn't feeling it. Maybe that was in spite of her misreading him. More likely, it was because of it. Her assumption—and reaction—had hardly been what he'd expect of the Mean Declaration Lady; maybe she was actually human after all.

So she'd thought he had a crush on his best friend. So what? Really? It obviously hadn't been an attempt to insult him... just a question.

It surprised him that he would give her the benefit of the doubt, to make that distinction. But maybe it was because she _had_ asked. Was she worried about getting in the way? Maybe she was. Maybe he'd just like to think so. And maybe it didn't matter.

"How long have you been thinking that, anyway?" Despite himself, he was curious.

Abigail shrugged. "Awhile... it sort of started to set in as soon as I realized you weren't brothers." Fortunately, she was looking away now, and didn't notice how he grimaced at the word _brothers._ "Really, though, when we got to his dad's house. You know, 'what do you have, him?' About then."

Riley flinched again. That had hurt the first time, and it hurt now... he decided it was time to shift the conversation elsewhere. "Well you don't need to worry. If I had a problem with you two hooking up, you'd have heard about it before. Like, oh, when he turned around and kissed you like it was the last chance he'd ever get." A contemplative expression crossed his features. "Admittedly, that was a fair guess at the time."

She laughed and leaned forward a little. "Point taken. So what _is_ it with you two? I know you said it's a long story, but we've got plenty of—"

"Dr. Chase?"

For the first time in his life, Riley thanked God for law enforcement. At least, he did so after jumping a foot in the air and whirling on the FBI agent who'd just walked up, as if expecting him to have a gun pointed at them. Okay, so the last couple of days had made him a little jumpy.

Abigail recovered more quickly, if she'd been startled at all. "Yes?"

"We're ready to speak with you now." Speak with you. A pretty euphemism for interrogation—which, the technical term was 'debriefing', but all _that_ was was an interrogation on friendly terms. Big deal. Besides, 'debriefing' sounded dirty.

Riley tossed her a grin and a wave. "Been nice knowing you!"

"Thanks, I think."

Then she was gone, leaving him alone on the balcony. By the time she got back, he would be prepared to dodge the question she'd started to ask, assuming she even remembered. She likely would. She was persistent. But he was good at ducking questions. That was nothing personal either, not now. Let her ask Ben how they'd met; he loved talking about history. Riley didn't—not even his own.

Especially not his own.

Another agent led Patrick Gates out a few minutes later. The FBI had provided all three of them small but comfortable bedrooms in the complex, but after the time they'd spent beneath Trinity Church, nobody wanted to be indoors until absolutely necessary. The adventure had other side effects too... like making it very difficult to hold grudges. So Riley gave Ben's father a nod of greeting. If he could get used to Abigail, perhaps he could get to like this old grouch as well. Eventually.

Besides, when all was said and done... he'd been right.

_Yeah. He's got me_.

That promise was held in his eyes, though Patrick may or may not have noticed. And if his father didn't think too highly of that, Ben felt differently. That was what was important. All that mattered...

Though he didn't know it—but surely had his suspicions—he'd taught Riley to trust again. And for that, Riley would follow him anywhere. It was something he hadn't felt since...

Since...

_Tristan? Is this what you meant?_

To find that person he could trust. To never let them go. Abigail had thought they were brothers, but no. Brothers grew apart. Brothers faded away, let each other down, and he was determined to never let that happen again. But... brothers loved each other. _Allegedly_. And that was all right.

No, he wasn't _in love_ with Ben. But maybe love was as good a word as any.


	15. Absolution

**Convergence  
Epilogue: Absolution**

_A/N- After three times as many chapters as I was planning on, it's done! (Though I should mention that this is just a prequel supplying backstory for my other fic, Vault of the Oracle, so 'done' doesn't exactly mean the story's over... by a long shot.)_

_Thanks so much for all the reviews and encouragement, and sorry about the wait... enjoy!_

* * *

Ben had no idea how difficult this was, Riley mused. Go get a house. Right.

It wasn't his fault; he'd made a good point. Ever since the discovery of the treasure, Riley's phone had been ringing almost constantly, and he was getting only a fraction of the attention Ben was. Under the circumstances, a permanent address would probably be a good idea.

Despite the obvious logic, Riley had resisted. He happened to like his van, thanks very much. The thought of staying still for that long made him twitchy. Ben claimed to understand, but kept trying to convince him to move into something that didn't have a license plate, even though he was getting nowhere.

And then Riley had seen _the car_.

He'd never really thought of himself as a car person. Perhaps he wasn't. Maybe it was just that one car... the Ferrari's siren call pointing out to him what no real estate ad quite could. _You've got a lot of money now, you might as well do something with it_. Rather like Ben's suggestion of a mailbox, the logic was hard to argue.

It had occurred to him to buy the car, find somewhere to park the van, and keep living in the van—if only to see Ben's reaction. His better judgment had decided to ruin his fun, though, and so the van went into storage. He couldn't imagine just getting rid of his old home. When things calmed down a bit, he'd see about getting the bullet holes fixed.

So here he was, sprawled out on his bed and feeling vaguely nervous for reasons he couldn't quite explain. The car was his concession to vanity; the small apartment he'd picked out was more practical. He didn't need or want so much space. He needed something, though... he wasn't sure. Time, certainly. A way to ease his mind at this sudden lack of mobility.

Closure?

The improbable odyssey was over, but...

Sapphire eyes widened in horror. "Oh... oh _shit_." He didn't usually let words like that slip, but the nagging unease had abruptly crystallized in his guts. Closure? Like hell! Forget the treasure, forget Ben—he still had cops on his tail!

_God, how'd you get that distracted?!_

Fame was absolutely the last thing he needed. Of course he'd covered his tracks well. Records would show that he'd lived in DC his whole life, so clearly the Denver police would be looking for a _different_ Riley Poole. But no amount of hacking would change his appearance, and the discovery was all over the national news. They'd see. Someone would remember. They'd know...

He was going to have to run again.

He grabbed his laptop and quickly thought better of it. He couldn't just email Ben... no, he'd have to at least say goodbye in person... and that had the added bonus of leaving less evidence. But he knew that wouldn't work. After all they'd been through, could he really just bring himself to leave? Especially after speaking to his best friend one last time?

Trying to put off that decision, he started typing. How much time did he have? Bailing on the investigation and falsifying a few records probably wouldn't call for SWAT teams and helicopters, at least... operating almost on autopilot he started working his way through networks he hadn't seen in years. The Denver police had improved their security. It didn't matter.

But something had to be wrong, he determined as he located the proper files. The case didn't appear to have been revisited. In fact, it was no longer under investigation at all. It had been closed with a lengthy interview with one Riley Poole, just before his release to live with an aunt in Wyoming. The department was satisfied; no further follow up was recommended.

"...He made it up." It was the only possibility—not _logical_ possibility, it wasn't the least bit logical. But there it was, in all its digitized splendor. He'd been questioned to the law's satisfaction. He knew nothing.

He was free.

Which meant... _closure?_ He stared at the laptop's screen for a minute, frowning. Then his expression shifted to a grin, and he started to type.

--

The story of the Templar treasure was old news by now. Not too old—the New Release display at the bookstore got plenty of interested glances as it went up—but old enough. Only one person was there specifically waiting for the book: a dark-skinned man in a police jacket. If anyone thought to wonder why, they probably figured law enforcement was interested in the book's other selling point, a surprisingly careful index of lesser-known conspiracy theories.

Maybe some other officer, somewhere else in Denver, would be buying it for that purpose. Not here.

Sergeant Damien Ross watched the news.

He picked up the first copy of The Templar Treasure to be set out, opened it, and glanced at the picture of the author in the back. Yes, definitely him. The kid really _didn't_ look so different from when he'd been burned into the officer's brain... it was good to know. He'd turned out alright.


End file.
